Have Xushaofa balls been banned?

roundrobin wrote: Xu = Shhhhhhhhh (like asking kids to be quiet in the library) Shao = Add a "S" in front of the word owl, so "S-owl" and say it strongly Fa = Like F#uck but remove the "ck". So Shhhhh - S-owl! - F#

Way to go with hiding the offending letters in F***

Also letter "l" in S-owl is probably better skipped.

igorponger wrote:

Is that the same as this?

I'm not sure the red ones are still sold anywhere.  I had a box, they were ok.

Played with Red. They are worse than those 1st generation with same black logo, which are in turn inferior to XSF sports. My guess they were first, sort of trial version.

I bought the new XSF Sports balls from Aliexpress. The seller seems legit, but the price was almost too good. I paid $18 total with shipping for 18 balls. I'll report back when I get a chance to hit with them in a few weeks. I have DHS seamed balls and Nittaku celluloid to compare them with.

I mentioned this on another thread, but I MUCH prefer the color of the XSF balls. It is a bright white. I appreciated it last night as I played with and saw the new nittaku premium 40+ which seemed almost cream or off white in color. My old man eyes saw the XSF ball much, much better. I think the play is similar in the two.

Baal wrote: Yes, I see XSF better also.  Also, I broke a new Nittaku Premium 40+ last night after 30 min.  You kind of need some time to figure this kind of thing out for sure, you can't just decide from one or two balls but I can say clearly now that durability is not great with Nittaku Premium 40+.  Somebody asked what they smell like on the inside.  It is not camphor.  It is some other heavy organic solvent smell.

Edited by wturber - 11/20/2014 at 5:56pm

Jay, I believe there is only one manufacturer of seamless balls, and that is a plant associated with XSF/Palio in China somewhere.  They make balls for several other companies too (YinHe, Nexy, Stag, etc.).  So the question of whether it smells of camphor or some other solvent ought to be the same answer the same for all of them (i.e.  no such smell).  Most companies contract with factories to make balls for them primarily to avoid the costs of trying to figure out how to make them themselves, since ping pong ball manufacturing is a pretty specialized business.  Presumably, Nexy or Stag negotiates a price, sends them a logo they can put on the balls, maybe has some specs for what they will accept for roundness and weight, and then arranges to get ITTF to approve them (which is probably easy if they come from a plant well known to ITTF).  What the other companies almost certainly don't do is make any recommendations to XSF/Palio  about details of plastic composition or manufacturing process. 

Just looking at the material, the plastic in XSF is clearly something different from what is used in Chinese seamed balls.  And the Nittaku Japan balls are yet again something else also.  You can tell from color and texture of these things and also compressibility. 

Baal wrote: Just looking at the material, the plastic in XSF is clearly something different from what is used in Chinese seamed balls.  And the Nittaku Japan balls are yet again something else also.  You can tell from color and texture of these things and also compressibility.

This guy, I assume?