Spectol Blue review

I wanted to try blue instead of red cause it is closer to 21...red produces more spin and less deception..

So, blue was spinnier than 21 and has better control on blocking and hitting..the sponge is harder than 21..the thing is that the deception is minimum!!was very easy for the opponent to play against..it was like an inverted rubber..So i stayed to 21!!

blue = 43°

I do have some impressions of the Spectol RED, had a 3 hour training session with it on Friday, bear in mind I'm an inverted player who only recently started testing out pips on BH. My best setup right now is T05 FH with Acuda S2 2.0 BH. I would say my rating is approx 1900-2000 at the moment, fluctuating a bit due to test of different BH rubbers.

I'll compare it to my Acuda S2 on BH. I don't have much pips experience so take it worth a grain of salt.

The SR(spectol red) feels great on blocks, it doesn't have as much 'click' as I expected. Acuda S2 2.0 really suited me because I mostly play close to the table and only drop back if pushed hard, taking bh shots off the bounce, either blocking/punching with placement and speed (not much spin), or hitting through loops if it's a tad high and I had it set up well (i.e. long bottom spin serve to bh side, force opponent to step around, loop not too fast due to heavy backspin, and hit through that). Occasionally I flip the serves on bh, and very rarely do I open up from the bh side. Actually, on paper it sounds like a great medium pips/short pips bh game, which is why i have been tempted to try out different pips lately. Make it easier for myself, and give my opponents a tad harder time with slightly unorthodox returns (well... unorthodox compared to what I was using).

 Back on track, the blocking was good. Not *great*, but I think it felt better than the AS2 when I was in position. Hitting through loops is a breeze, and I was able to hit *drive?* through bottom spin with moderate success as well after only a short time with it. Flips were slower, I couldn't run through the ball on top of the table like inverted (duh!) so while the initial speed is fairly close (I'd still say the AS2 was faster for this particular shot), the second speed after the bounce was very different, and with only minimal spin relative to the AS2 it was easy for the opponent to counter effectively.

I was not able to do opening loops with it on bottomspin, had to hit/drive through the ball.

Overall it was quite hard to make deceptive shots, occasionally I would get a slightly dead ball but it was still easily countered. The dead balls coming off my 563 (sponged) was much more difficult to counter. 

I can see that it's useful for someone who likes to hit everything close to the table, for me it wasn't the ticket. The margin of error on SP is too low for high stress situations, and I could pretty much do everything it gave me plus some with my AS2 2.0.

On the other hand, I then tried a long pips CK531A with thin sponge, and it was the bomb. Blocks and hits were fantastic with lots of sink and some reversal, serve return was very agile, quick, and very wobbly. I'm going to be spending more time with that instead to see how it can fit into my game. If all else fails I'll just go back to my trust AS2 2.0 :)

Thomas