Nexy Arirang review thread

Magic_M... I am with you about controlling the explosive shots with certain rubbers. I have used Aurus for a couple years on FH on just about every blade I played. I know this rubber well. On Arirang, I has issues keeping the ball from going long on power shots. I had to take off just a little power. Not a good thing.

Drive on Holic, look forward to seeing your opinions.

Nexy Arirang review:
I am testing a 90g ST Arirang that NEXY kindly offered for testing. I play several times with it just to make sure.
This blade has OFF+ speed, faster than the TB series to me. Feels lighter than 90g and has a medium to low throw. Quality blade craftsmanship and Butterfly like finish; the grip is super comfortable and the sharp edges are rounded out.

Basic counters: decent speed but not too fast. The blade has no vibration and the top two layers provide very nice soft feel. The carbon layer and the middle burnt layer seem to be one. It’s stiff and very very hard.

Short games: pushes, flicks, serves are well controlled.

Blocks: Well control on slower loops but faster loops require good hands, because Arirang is harder to control when the ball gets too deep into the layers. Still, it is well above average because it has no vibration and is stiff.

Loops: this is the area where the blade seem to be different from most of the blades that I used. Arirang feels very soft and very thin because it is a combination of two kind of materials, soft wood layers at the outer and hard carbon and burnt wood at the inner. Soft feel because during brush loops, fake loops, or spin loops the ball only make contact with the outer part of Arirang. Hard and thin when I loop using normal strokes. During power loops I like to feel the ball completely hitting through the blade for a split second. Because the outer layers of Arirang are too soft to be noticed and take little energy to hit through, I often only feel the inner part when looping. The inner is probably less than 4mm but very very hard to penatrate. You have to be physically fit and strong to use Arirang. In other words, Arirang has less than average dwell time for loops. I simply can't play with the normal H3. I had to changed to GD superspin g3. Any soft sponged ruuber with a sticky topsheet is better suited.

Close to the table, mid distance: This is not a close to the table blade for me. I am not fast enough to provide more dwell time for my loops. I prefer playing a few steps back to gain more time for loops.

Arirang is for an advance player who is looking for extra speed and power on his loops. Or, if you have super soft hands this might also be the balde for you. Arirang is more linear than any blade that I have tried and would provide more power.

edited: this blade reminds me of the center carbon design but I must say that I haven't play with a center carbon for a long time and my memory isn't very good.

Edited by thethinker - 08/25/2013 at 11:37pm

Below is PPH's review:

 

In-Action Sessions: First day at trial, I just decided to play against a tough opponent.  ~1950-2000 rated Two-Winger (Same player in my other Adidas Testing Rubber Video).  During warm up session, I can feel some loss of hand feel, but still enough for me to control.  It has more pace, and even more spinny as complimented by my club mate.  Vlon-S is an exceptional rubber for its price, however, it’s not on the ITTF approved rubbers list anymore=(.  Blitz is a Do-It-All rubber, can generate spin on brush loops & drives, blocks excellent on my backhand as well.  Upon warm ups, I can immediately feel the hardness of the blade.  The catapult on medium & hard strokes is not linear (common among Carbon-Based blades).  However, the feel is better than most composite blades I have played with,  it’s fairly easy to adjust to.  I didn’t have to work as hard in rallying compare to an all wood blade, especially on those fast blocks coming back to my side of the table.  The medium speed gear, and the spin it produces on my setup are some of the strengths of this blade. (IMO).  Counterlooping is easy from mid to long distance.  Also, the throw is not much off from my 5ply OSP, so the transition wasn’t as tough. 

Summary: Been playing with the same setup for ~2 weeks.  More matches than practices.  I have noticed an increase of points won against high level rated players (2100-2300).  Even when I find myself down 4-8, 5-9, I have made huge comebacks & won those sets.  Most of the games went to 5^th sets, and I lost 90% of those matches.  I firmly believe that playing with a slower blade really helps in improving all categories of the game, and the learning curve for faster blades become shorter.  A lot of the points I usually lose are the mid distance rallies, but not with this blade combination=).  Videos to be posted below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKNuigwBZcw&feature=youtu.be

Hopefully from this video you can see the comments I’ve made regards to my setup:

Heavy spin serves, requires good touch on blocking due to medium stiffness and bounciness from blade, produce very spinny, and powerful loops.  Medium gear speed bails me out of jammed shots.  Good third ball power. 

 Overall: I would rate ARIRANG against the similar structured (Carbon-Based) blades I have used from my EJ experiences.  Rubbers used are Tacky Chinese FH, and Tensor BH

Speed(1^st Gear)  Yinhe V4 = Chinese ULC > Amultart  ≥ Arirang > IF ZLC = Taksim

Speed(Max Gear): Amultart  > Chinese ULC > IF ZLC = Yinhe V4 ≥ Arirang > Taksim

Spin Generation: Arirang ≥ IF ZLC = Yinhe V4 > Amultart ≥ Taksim > Chinese ULC

Medium Gear: Amultart ≥ Arirang > Chinese ULC = Yinhe V4 > Taksim > IF ZLC

Feel: Arirang > IF ZLC ≥ Amultart ≥ Yinhe V4 > Taksim > Chinese ULC 

Control(Placement, defense): Arirang ≥ IF ZLC > Yinhe V4 ≥ Taksim > Chinese ULC > Amultart

In conclusion I will rate Arirang as follows:

83gr, ~6.0mm thick,

Speed (medium-top Gears): (9-9.5) out of 10

Spin: 9.8 out of 10

Control: 9.0 out of 10

Hardness: Medium-Hard

Flex: Medium-Stiff

pph, the youtube video is private ... could you make it pubic?

Cool Vid PPP, you gave 'em all some.

PingPongHolic10 wrote: ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKNuigwBZcw&feature=youtu.be

I enjoyed the review and the video.

the other video tips about playing a chopper is pretty cool too:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=knRjMQNY750

harldhzx wrote: "I played a match vs our young female coach last night. (Hey guys, fly over to my club, she is not married yet and is in the prime of her "gotta get married" age. " Although I am happily married myself I might enjoy a photo :)

BH-Man wrote: harldhzx wrote: "I played a match vs our young female coach last night. (Hey guys, fly over to my club, she is not married yet and is in the prime of her "gotta get married" age. " Although I am happily married myself I might enjoy a photo :)    OK, here is a pic of coach a few weeks ago.

I love Korea.

@BH-Man: Thx. What is her feedback on Arirang - also, does she really play with that footwear :) ? 

I am still very positive on Arirang. A used, softer sheet of H3 on my fh is better than a fresh sheet. From reading other reviews I would have to say that you have to chose the rubber very carefully using Arirang.

Sorry for the late review of the Arirang blade. But as a player and coach the beginning of the season is quite busy.

As soon as I let the ball bounce on the bare blade I could understand why the purpose of the blade is depth. You can clearly feel the hard burned central ply behind the soft hinoki outer ply and the aramid-carbon ply.

I tested the blade with my usual rubbers: T64 2,1 in the forehand and T64FX 2,1 in the backhand. The weight of the blade is 81,7gr and overall setup was about 168gr if I remember well.

The blade is quite thin and quite hard compared to most arylate-carbon hinoki blade I have tested (Iolite, Iolite Neo, Supreme Speed, Cofferlait, KLS, Oscar, T-7, T-8...). Also the playing characteristics are quite different. It is way less bouncy in the short game and dwell-time is much longer on opening loops. You have to generate the speed by yourself but when you do it, it doesn't seem limited to do so. It is more a looper blade because it is not as good as other hinoki-carbon blades in flat hitting.

I did a direct comparison with Oscar. As said before Arirang has so much more control in the short game and on opening loops yet so much more power when you really want to hit it hard. Oscar has a nice soft feel and good overall control but sometimes it is a but too bouncy compared to Arirang. It is very easy to generate medium speed with the Oscar but it feels more limited on power shots.
On flat hitting Oscar is much easier and better but Arirang has more control for blocking on powerful or spinny loops.

Overall the Arirang is very complete off blade with good control, good looping specs and quite some power even though power is not its strong point. The closest blade I know is the Joola Rosskopf Emotion which is slowly becoming a classic best-seller on the french forum. Arirang could have the same success. I personally think it has a better feel and a bit more gears but the price might be a limit to its success.

I will try to do a direct comparison betwwen Arirang and Emotion when I get time to do it.

Thanks to Nexy for giving me the opportunity to test this very unique blade.


Edited by ttping85 - 10/16/2013 at 4:59pm

Yes, it was the Arirang you tried with Evolution FX-P (Black) and EL-P.

I don't have a gauge here, but using a ruler, I'd say more than 6mm, and closer to 6.5mm. I'd guess 6.3mm.
Flex, catapult? it all depends on your reference.
Dwell time is high, i.e. I'd say it's a soft blade. About catapult, it's not stiff at all for being a carbon blade: think Nittaku Acoustic, OSP Virtuoso, and Nexy Calix. Tibhar Inca has a similar construction but is way stiffer.