TB ALC vs ZJK ALC

Anecdotal intelligence suggests that Butterfly started treating the wood differently with the TB ALC and ZJK ALC to make them a tad harder and stiffer than their koto/ALC predecessors Viscaria and TBS.  My question is for anyone familiar with the TB ALC and ZJK ALC.  Are they generally the same hardness/stiffness?  Or is the ZJK ALC even stiffer?

true.  I've made quantum leaps in my development by experimenting/upgrading to high quality/faster blades.  OSP instantaneously developed my BH.  Nittaku wood blades taught me how to feel the ball on the FH.  And now the ZJK ALC, at the end of the tunnel, is helping me blow people off the table.  So while I agree with you, I also believe equipment is extremely important.

I've read plenty of comments on how TBS is stiffer than TB ALC and vice versa, same with flex/feel/speed/etc. It seems like it goes back and forth with these two blades >>> which means they are pretty similar. I haven't touched a ZJK ALC so I cant really comment on that. But for u2300 players this shouldn't matter much in terms of picking an ALC blade from the pool of awesome Butterfly ALC blades. They all play similar so I think you should just pick one and stick with it. That's what I did and I love my TB ALC.

So generally speaking all Bty ALC blades have similar hardness/stiffness/feel. Don't let people's opinions (especially on this forum) confuse you on how big of a difference these blades are because frankly most of us here are not 2300+.

Edited by DreiZ - 08/23/2014 at 11:10pm

I have had 10 (or more?) Vis, 2 ZJK-ALC, 2 TB-ALC (have hit with many others), and 1 Blue Dragon (hit with another).  I agree with Prospin that Viscaria is the best, but I like the ZJK-ALC second best and very much better than Blue Dragon which for me was a major disappointment. I have pretty much only used them with Tenergy, I can't play with Chinese rubber at all.  Partly a matter of taste, I like blades pretty soft and don't want them too fast, and the TB-ALCs of recent years are very fast.  The very first one I had was very nice, though, and I would have kept it except it had a square handle (that was my experiment, to see if I liked a square handle, which didn't work well for me).  The interesting thing is that based on this it seems that Prospin and I have somewhat different needs for a blade and yet we both liked Viscaria the best. For me, Viscaria is the pinacle of feeling in a composite blade.  Even among the ones I have now, though, two are better than the others.  I have yet to figure out a way to tell which ones are going to feel best when I play with them except by playing with them.  Nothing I have tried seems to predict in advance.

I found that Zjk alc is softer compared to tb alc too. Somehow feel it between tb zlf and tb alc of course closer to tb alc in speed and feedback.