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Questions About The New 40+ Balls |
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bobloiy
Member Joined: 01/21/2014 Location: New Jersey Status: Offline Points: 69 |
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Posted: 03/04/2015 at 11:54pm |
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My first question is, what is the possibility that sometime in the future, more companies will make balls like XSF's? DHS balls are really bad right now...
Second question, for any of you that did transition from celluloid to plastic (esp. non XSF/Nexy), did you perform noticeably worse for a couple of days? I feel like the lower bounce and less speed is affecting more than I thought. Or, I'm just not confident in my shots and that's causing me to miss more and try less. Edited by bobloiy - 03/04/2015 at 11:54pm |
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Baal
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bobloiy
Member Joined: 01/21/2014 Location: New Jersey Status: Offline Points: 69 |
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Did you transition over to plastic as well? I'm worried because I'm afraid balls that play like XSF will never get major recognition because they aren't being used in international competition. I have a feeling DHS balls (or similar) will be used for most tournaments, although XSF balls are vastly superior. |
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bbkon
Premier Member Joined: 04/19/2005 Location: Afghanistan Status: Offline Points: 7260 |
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i have noticed that semi worn 40+ balls are unplayable when they get slick
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asifgunz
Gold Member Joined: 09/15/2013 Location: Queens NY Status: Offline Points: 1448 |
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tbh Im going through a "blade, tearmender, Omega IV won't listen to me, doming on me after 1.5 years " effect. Even through all this, I didn't notice much of a difference. Or maybe I just blamed my 4 year old backup paddle with 4 year old omega IV pro, for all the inconsistent shots. If Nittaku decides to make the new balls, It will definitely be in the top list of the many. That's a given.
Even their non 3 star balls play as well as bty 3 stars. |
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BH-Man
Premier Member Joined: 02/05/2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 5042 |
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OP, I did a tourney using the seamed Poly Ball I can say I NEVER saw a ball bounce so inconsistent (except for the same ball Boston TTC players broke out one night I was there) and I cannot tell you how dis-satisfied I was with its (seamed Poly Ball) performance.
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Baal
Forum Moderator Joined: 01/21/2010 Location: unknown Status: Offline Points: 14336 |
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OP, I use exclusively polyballs for almost a year now. I have tried nearly every one made in the world today (almost) and made it my mission to find out everything I could about them. I was very much opposed to this change beforehand.
By far the best ones are seamless (make sure you get balls that are ITTF approved). The only other ones I like for sure are Nittaku Premium 40+ (from a pure playing point of view). The seamless balls have a good bounce that is quite easy to adjust too, they are durable and less expensive. They are marketed by tradenames of XuShaoFa, Nexy, Yinhe, Palio, Stag, probably some others too. They are a bit cheaper and very durable also, and definitely the most round ball, with the highest bounce. I cannot discern any playing difference between the three brands I've tried. None of us expected the seamless balls to be good based on prototypes we had 18 months ago, but they are good (if they are ITTF approved). I think more than anyone I have pushed people to try them and now there are a lot of satisfied people on the internet. My small contribution to table tennis, I suppose. The Nittkum Premium 40+ is made in Japan, has a seam but a very small one (you can only see it if you hold it up to the light). It is expensive, not as durable, and worst of all, almost always back-ordered and impossible to buy (and more than $3.00 per ball when you can find them). They are less durable than seamless, but at least have a decent bounce. They are a little faster to play with then the seamless. They are pretty good to play with too, but if you are used to seamless it takes an hour or two to adjust to the Nittaku Premium. These are probably the most like celluloid. Like I said, though, good luck buying one. All other balls (including the Nittaku SHA) have large very visible seams and are made in China by either DHS or Double Fish. In general they are all terrible and pretty much the same and everybody has the problems you are talking about adjusting to them. I won't use them if I have a choice. They have destroyed the enjoyment of playing for a lot of people, but in time you can adjust a little bit, but never completely. I do have one piece of good news on that front. Two nights ago I played with some Butterfly 40+ balls that had been made very recently, Feb 2015 according to stamp on the box. These seem to be much better in terms of the bounce than any Chinese seamed ball I had used before. They had a decent bounce. The problem was that many of the balls in that box of 12 had pretty unacceptable deviations from roundness, but in my mind they have definitely made progress. So far all of the seamed balls made in China have had durability problems, although there is some sense on forums that the ones made by Double Fish are a little better. The Butterfly ball is made by DOuble Fish, so there is reason to hope that over the next year, the Chinese seamed balls may (1) figure out how to make something better. It is also people that some makers will give up on the seamed balls and make deals to manufacture seamless balls, which are simply better. For now all of the 40+ balls marketed by European companies (Joola, Donic, Stiga, etc) are made by DHS and are truly awful. People should not talk about "THE" plastic ball, as there are currently 3-4 distinct varieties and they are not all the same. That in itself is an unacceptable situation that we never really had to deal with in the days of celluloid. |
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LUCKYLOOP
Platinum Member Joined: 03/27/2013 Location: Pongville USA Status: Offline Points: 2800 |
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Check out what Larry Hodges says (answer #5) about the new poly balls: Larry Hodges |
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Hntr Fl / 4H & BH Xiom Sigma Pro 2 2.0
Yinhe T-2 / 4H Xiom Sig Pro 2 2.0 BH Xiom Omega IV Elite Max Gam DC / 4H DHS Hurricane 8 39deg 2.1 BH GD CC LP OX HARDBAT / Hock 3 ply / Frenshp Dr Evil OX |
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bogeyhunter
Gold Member Joined: 02/22/2006 Location: Jacksonville, F Status: Offline Points: 1245 |
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A bit difficult for me to say here. I don't want to create any enemy but MDTTC is sponsored by a big brand. They had to use that brand's balls. I don't think Hodges has played with a good poly ball.
A member here also contacted a few clubs in his area to see if there was a way to change ball. Many clubs got balls from another big brand for free thus they won't change. |
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www.NexyUSA.com
We also carries Sauer & Tröger. Lissom O+EASY P 1mm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_65FLO2Lneo https://youtu.be/YgYFPJCBCr0 https://youtu.be/NeHp789Lb1c https://youtu.be/_65FLO2Lneo |
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Baal
Forum Moderator Joined: 01/21/2010 Location: unknown Status: Offline Points: 14336 |
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I agree with Larry and Bogey both. Larry is correct in general, I agree that it is a big mess. Exactly. My one quibble with him would be if he includes seamless balls in his general condemnation and if he wants to say that the seamless subset of 40+ balls have any sort of systematic problem with roundness, bounce consistency or durability. They do not.
My guess is that at the time he wrote that, he had not tried a seamless ball. If he he had tried them and then made that statement, I would respectfully state that he is mistaken. I have now a great deal of experience with seamless balls. I know they are consistently round, with a nice bounce, and among the most durable balls ever made (but with a special vulnerability to hard impacts with edges). They have some 40+ traits obviously -- they fly a little slower and they spin a little less. That comes from their size. All 40+ balls have that property, and it is easy to get used to. |
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bobloiy
Member Joined: 01/21/2014 Location: New Jersey Status: Offline Points: 69 |
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That's exactly what's happening to my club. I haven't seen a major tournament play with the seamless balls, and this resulted in my club changing to DHS balls, which have terrible bounce and speed... Has ok durability and spin though. |
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bogeyhunter
Gold Member Joined: 02/22/2006 Location: Jacksonville, F Status: Offline Points: 1245 |
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I got in contact with Lindenwood U. They use DHS and the players I chat with are not happy with balls but they have no choice. The main point we talked about was the bounce. If it has less spin or even too much spin or not durable, it still ok all players can adjust but bad bounce is something will make you want to quit. |
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www.NexyUSA.com
We also carries Sauer & Tröger. Lissom O+EASY P 1mm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_65FLO2Lneo https://youtu.be/YgYFPJCBCr0 https://youtu.be/NeHp789Lb1c https://youtu.be/_65FLO2Lneo |
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Baal
Forum Moderator Joined: 01/21/2010 Location: unknown Status: Offline Points: 14336 |
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+ 1 million |
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bobloiy
Member Joined: 01/21/2014 Location: New Jersey Status: Offline Points: 69 |
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Yup, you got that right. Bounce is killing me right now. I'm wondering, do I take the ball earlier? All the balls I hit at the moment all go into the net, it's frustrating. |
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zheyi
Silver Member Joined: 06/28/2009 Status: Offline Points: 940 |
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ive tried some big brand plastic balls namely butterfly, dhs 40+, nittaku sh. and double fish.
The main issue still the roundness to me. We have to spin every ball to sleve out the round one for competition. And durability is something that manufacturer has to deal with. |
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AgentHEX
Gold Member Joined: 12/14/2004 Location: Yo Mama Status: Offline Points: 1641 |
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I think the solution lies with studying and really trying to understand how you intercept the trajectory of the ball. I had the same problem going into the net at first (~half the first dozen loops), because by default you're just swinging out of habit. In general you'll need to generate a bit more "lift", and depending on how you approach the swing that either means more upward angle of attack (contact slightly lower on the ball, imply bit lower backswing if need be), or if you swing more like the CNT does, more speed into the ball with a tack-ish rubber will lift higher. The slightly slower pace helps the latter, but also means you really need to watch the trajectory and adjust your timing accordingly. It took a few hours of conscientious tweaking to get used to it; most importantly you need the right motivation, not defeatist attitude. |
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LOG1C1AN
Super Member Joined: 04/22/2013 Location: Los Angeles Status: Offline Points: 303 |
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Sorry, but no one can "get used to" a ball that is not round and therefore does not bounce consistently.
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Baal
Forum Moderator Joined: 01/21/2010 Location: unknown Status: Offline Points: 14336 |
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@Bobloiy, No you can't just take it earlier. That will mess up your timing way too much and it's just not tenable most of the time.
But you do have to know a seamed 40+ ball just stays lower. Actually, there are really two things you have to get used to. One is the larger size, which affects speed and spin. In the case of the seamed Chinese balls, you also have to get used to a lower bounce. (Actually there is a third issue too, which is the that the rough texture of the ball also causes different behavior off the table on things like pushes, serve returns and sidespin loops, but all of the 40+ balls show that behavior). I suggest breaking the problem into two steps. First, get some seamless balls and train with them for a few weeks, even if you are mainly going to have to use the crappy seamed balls in tournaments. This will let you get used to adjustments you have to make for the larger size of the polyballs (and the texture too, which is a not insignificant difference between all of the plastic balls and celluloid). Then switch to the seamed polyballs (if you feel you have to for tournaments etc.). Now you will be adjusting to the lower bounce* but you will already have a feel for the trajectory in the air, and the changes in speed and spin and texture. You will still have some difficulties with the lower bounce -- everybody does -- but this will help reduce some of the frustration because by the time you learn to deal with that, it will be the only thing unfamiliar to you. Of course you may decide to just use the seamless ones after this. * over and above the lack of roundness often seen with Chinese seamed 40+, which Logician mentioned just now, a big problem with seamed Chinese balls is the lower bounce on essentially every shot. You can select to find a more round ball, there are always at least one or two round ones in every box, but even if you do, there is going to be some adjustments you need to make for the low bounce. |
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AgentHEX
Gold Member Joined: 12/14/2004 Location: Yo Mama Status: Offline Points: 1641 |
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They're round and bounce consistently as empirically tested by a user on OOAK. The "inconsistency" is most likely a matter of mistaken judgment by players who can't own up to their errors. |
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pnachtwey
Platinum Member Joined: 03/09/2010 Location: Vancouver, WA Status: Offline Points: 2035 |
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I don't understand how the balls can be out of round. The balls are molded in a mold. What can be in doubt is how even the plastic is distributed on the inside. The technique is called roto molding.
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Baal
Forum Moderator Joined: 01/21/2010 Location: unknown Status: Offline Points: 14336 |
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Deviation from roundness easily seen by spinning on the table before playing. Its not iimaginary. I find it an annoying feature of Chinese seamed balls. It is crappy quality control because they dont all deviate but at least one hopelessly bad one in every box. Or more. It seems the manufacturer doesnt care.
Of course it could be the deviation is on the inside of the ball but that doesnt matter in practice. |
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AgentHEX
Gold Member Joined: 12/14/2004 Location: Yo Mama Status: Offline Points: 1641 |
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With seamed balls there's some potential non-uniformity in the joining process, same as cell balls. Anyway, people can claim whatever they want about inconsistent bounces, but it passes the ITTF test which we don't have data for, and passed "Debater's" test which we can see they bounce uniformly low. |
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Baal
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Bear in mind that the ITTF test they use now is not the one that they will have to meet in January of 2016. The standards they are using to approve balls now have never been stated, only the ones they will have to meet in 2016. So the fact that balls at the moment have an ITTF stamp is obviously a pretty minimal standard, as can be easily ascertained by veer testing, or spinning a ball on the table and watching it behave like an egg. That was obvious from the same videos from Debater that AgentHEX mentions (the raw data of which he sent to me to do some statistics on). Debater measured many things as well as he could, and one thing obvious is that the static bounce was very consistent --- very consistently low -- substantially so compared to celluloid. Most of the seamed Chinese balls, certainly the DHS balls, do not meet several of the 2016 standards, among which weight is the most easy to measure. XSF announced sometime back that they already meet the 2016 standards.
Having said that, some Butterfly balls I hit with a few days ago, made in Feb 2015, seem to be getting better, although some deviation from apparent roundness (spin tests on the table) were still there. So anyway, to OP, follow my program (start with seamless, then transition to seamed balls if you must) and you may find it easier to adapt to these crappy things. |
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AgentHEX
Gold Member Joined: 12/14/2004 Location: Yo Mama Status: Offline Points: 1641 |
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> The standards they are using to approve balls now have never been
stated, only the ones they will have to meet in 2016.
"Never been stated" http://www.ittf.com/stories/pictures/T3_Ball_forBoD2014_final.pdf If anyone could be bothered to read the actual doc the "minimal standard" <2016 bounce spec lower bound is only 3mm out of 240mm less than 2016, or ~1%. The plastic ball (the worst possible DHS tested) also had much more consistent bounce than celluloid. > So the fact that balls at the moment have an ITTF stamp is obviously a pretty minimal standard, as can be easily ascertained by veer testing, or spinning a ball on the table and watching it behave like an egg. Good thing someone measured for nearly everything incl. veer and sent you the raw data to do some statistics on to correctly determine they pass same 2016 spec as celluloid on all except maybe bounce height, where it's a bit ambiguous because Debater used a different test platform than the ITTF. Regardless the spec difference is so minimal that even in the worst possible case DHS only has to make their ball bounce 1% higher for the 2016 spec. The facts of this case are pretty straightforward, only less so when bent to suit previous biases. Edited by AgentHEX - 03/06/2015 at 3:55pm |
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Baal
Forum Moderator Joined: 01/21/2010 Location: unknown Status: Offline Points: 14336 |
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You are right, I had read that technical leaflet, but forgot that they did specify some standards. As you can see in that pdf, many of the required standards were relaxed until January 2016 for 40+ balls. It has been discussed at length. But of course, for veer, the property that may be most relevant to the properties players complain about, Debater's data showed that the Joola 40+ balls (basically DHS) have significant issues.
I also KNOW (am not guessing), I KNOW that some of the standards are not being followed. I have purchased recently an ITTF approved plastic ball that was not packaged with date codes (in clear violation of section C.4). And I know that many of the seamed balls that we spin on the table are not regular compared to usual for cellulloid or seamless. So yes, the facts actually are quite straightforward, as you say. ITTF is not enforcing the already weakened standards in that technical leaflet. They have stated many times that they are giving manufacturers a break for awhile because it turned out to be unexpectedly challenging for some factories to meet the standards they had proposed. I can also state for a fact that players around 1,000 rating points better than you dislike these balls intensely owing to bad bounces and deviations from round behavior (our current national champion, a friend of mine). And then there is one who is a world champion. http://tabletennista.com/2015/2/ding-ning-not-yet-fully-adapted-to-the-plastic-ball-video/?utm_source=facebook&utm_term=ding-ning-not-yet-fully-adapted-to-the-plastic-ball-video&utm_campaign=fb-tta |
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LUCKYLOOP
Platinum Member Joined: 03/27/2013 Location: Pongville USA Status: Offline Points: 2800 |
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Deleted Edited by LUCKYLOOP - 03/06/2015 at 5:39pm |
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Hntr Fl / 4H & BH Xiom Sigma Pro 2 2.0
Yinhe T-2 / 4H Xiom Sig Pro 2 2.0 BH Xiom Omega IV Elite Max Gam DC / 4H DHS Hurricane 8 39deg 2.1 BH GD CC LP OX HARDBAT / Hock 3 ply / Frenshp Dr Evil OX |
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hookumsnivy
Gold Member Joined: 11/04/2010 Location: Syracuse, NY Status: Offline Points: 1599 |
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I don't know if it's that they're not round (some aren't), or if they develop soft spots over time, but I played with the joola 40+ POS at my last tournament and I had some very odd bounces. I wasn't the only person complaining about the weird bounces at the tournament so I know it wasn't just me.
If these pass the ITTF tests, then there is a problem with either the requirements or the testing procedures. Adjusting to a lower bounce, less spin and less speed is easy. The randomness of some bounces is not something I'll ever get used to. I've used seamless balls for weeks without questioning the bounce, but using Joola balls that had been used for a day or 2 was very aggravating.
Edited by hookumsnivy - 03/06/2015 at 5:09pm |
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AgentHEX
Gold Member Joined: 12/14/2004 Location: Yo Mama Status: Offline Points: 1641 |
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I'm attesting to what the available empirical data shows, which is that the plastic balls meet ITTF specs and if anything significantly improves on consistency. Also, from your link Ding Ning attributes the loss to psychology and only added: My overall feeling was good at the start. I was able to find the right approach to the new ball. But, during fierce confrontations, there could be some errors. I don’t know why there are those mistakes. After going through more matches will I be able to adapt Hardly a ringing endorsement for your bias on this matter. |
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AgentHEX
Gold Member Joined: 12/14/2004 Location: Yo Mama Status: Offline Points: 1641 |
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It's interesting these "random" bounces tend to decrease as people get used to it. The Joola balls are DHS which have the lower bounce. The seamless don't. |
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Baal
Forum Moderator Joined: 01/21/2010 Location: unknown Status: Offline Points: 14336 |
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The point is AgentHEX that at the level at which you play, it is not surprising that you found not a lot to be different, since the issues with these balls would rarely matter for the shots that you hit.
There is no doubt that these seamed balls behave differently, and many of them wobble. And there are quantitative data that showed a large number with unacceptable veer. Now, take that out of the mix, only play with the round ones, there are still things you need to adjust to. Again EVERYBODY has said that. SO why are you trolling the thread? |
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