Looks like same Tinarc 3 sponge.... same colour as well as hardness...

I don't think it was designed exclusively for BH, but since it was revealed Xu Xin started using a h3 topsheet on some japanese sponge, a lot of people have started trying it.  i intend to use mine for FH when i receive them

mine are still on the way from estonia =(

i guess i'll add to the tally, i plan on using it for both forehand and backhand to replace tenergy-05 2.1mm

rationale - used to play with H3 on FH but had trouble mid-distance counter-looping rallies (would go into the net), so i switched to tenergy, but now that i've gotten more experience counter-looping with power from mid-distance, i'm more comfortable taking a full swing (necessary for chinese rubbers). so i'm going back to chinese rubbers to get that nice spinny brush loop back and super refined short game (my short game wasn't bad with tenergy, but wasn't as good as with chinese). 

my hope is that hurricane 3-50 will give me some nice power/speed from mid-distance while retaining the short game/serves and brush looping of chinese rubbers

On your BH or FH?

Could you make a video with like you did with your C-Pen blade?

That was great and I'd love to see it with the H3-50.

Sure thing :)

Bounce:  Feels soft, softer than neo bordering mushy.  Bounce is higher than h3 neo unboosted.

Tackiness:  Reasonably tacky, could stick the ball to the topsheet for about 2 seconds.  Had to increase my swing speed on serves because the soft sponge and tackiness cling to the ball more than I'm used to which caused a few errors for me.

Counterhitting:  A bit slow, but naturally spinnier than the other versions of h3.  The 37deg sponge really eats the ball even on flat hits and makes a bit of spin.

Opening loop:  Very easy, although slow.  I had difficulty generating any real power, but the spin was huge.

Loop drive:  Lacks power, but very easy to get the ball on the table.  The sponge has almost no spring to it although it is very porous and elastic.  The sound the rubber makes is more of a pop rather than the characteristic snap of chinese rubber - sounds kind of like tenergy.  It has a medium-high throw.

Push:  Very easy to generate spin and keep controlled.

Block:  Powerless and inconsistent.  H3-50 really hurts for speed here, but I think that is something that can be solved by boosting it.  I will be taking off my rubber already to boost it because this makes it near unplayable for me on a 5-ply wood blade.

Smashing:  Didn't do to much of this, but flat hitting with any power in any of its form seems unstable, including punch blocking, smashes, fast flat serves, etc.

I feel like this rubber is begging to be boosted as it already has HUGE spin potential, but it really lacks any sort of real power.  Maybe it would be better suited to a fast carbon blade unboosted?  I will post more thoughts later tonight.

If you're going to boost it, what booster do you use and how many layers do you put on it.

Are you using it on FH or BH?

suds I haven't tried G666 but I know the sponge on this is a lot livelier than the older DHS sponges.  37 degree in the #50 sponge is a little softer than the regular neo sponge but still on the firmer side overall.

I'm happy that "slow" is the overall impression in a lot of the categories - with unboosted H3 that is also true, so I hope this rubber isn't radically different.

Maybe it should be called Hurricane 666 

I may be just too accustomed to playing with the harder 41deg sponge - I already find 39deg neo a bit on the soft side but this 37deg #50 sponge is drastically different from what I'm used to and my confidence in attacking is suffering for it.  I've never tried tin arc.

http://s1272.photobucket.com/user/steven_chen1/media/IMG_2190_zps20d3dba7.jpg.html" rel="nofollow">

With one layer of finzeip on the sponge, gluing to my blade with 2 on the blade 1 on the sponge.

Honestly though the way I see it, if you have to boost the rubber then you might as well stick to regular H3. 

EDIT EDIT EDIT:  Please read on to page two of this thread to see my updated opinions and verdict about H3-50.

I have never played with speed glue, but the boosted H3-50 must be what it feels like, and it certainly sounds like it and plays like it.  One unique characteristic about H3-50 with booster is that it seems to be an EXCELLENT countering rubber (more explanation in the details below).  It is about average in generating power - although it is by no means slow after boosting it - but it is the best rubber I have ever used for manipulating or redirecting an opponent's power.

H3-50 Boosted Initial Impressions (FOREHAND):

Sound:  The first thing I realized when I started using it is that it is the loudest rubber I have ever used, and there is a very prominent click when the sponge is engaged.  I cannot emphasize how amazing the sound H3-50 makes is enough.  

Feel/Short Game:  Very snappy, the dwell and catapult were incredibly obvious in every stroke.  Comparable to Tenergy or Spin Art, but much crisper.  H3-50 became rather bouncy after the boosting and it took some adjusting in terms of touch for serves/pushes, but it's by no means unmanageable.  It is far more controllable than any of the Tenergy series in my opinion.

Flat-Hitting/Drives/Smashes:  H3-50 may actually suit quick-attack hitters equally as well as loopers.  I found it was one of the easiest rubbers I have ever used when it comes to flat hitting after it's been boosted... a complete 180 from how it performs without booster.  I was also able to execute effective TBH smashes which I've never been able to do in the past with any consistency.  Flipping the ball from the FH side aggressively was much easier than with the H3BS.  The sound it makes is just beautiful.

Opening loops:  Still spinny as always with a bit of added pace, although not quite as punishing as the H3BS.  The players I practiced with immediately noticed how much more the ball seems to kick on my loops, although the initial speed seems slower than my h3 blue sponge.  The arc with H3-50 is slightly higher than the H3BS, probably due to H3-50's softer sponge.

Loop drives:  Very consistent and more forgiving than the H3BS, especially at lower speeds.  H3-50 has a faster low/medium gear speed than the H3 blue sponge, but it doesn't have as much top-gear speed as the H3BS.  But, at my level I won't be (or shouldn't be) tapping into 100% power very often anyway, so H3-50 better suits my game/ability at the moment.

Counterlooping at the table:  I feel that this may be the strongest feature of the H3-50.  It feels like the sponge eats the ball even at slower swing speeds and spits it back out with a vengeance off the bounce with excellent control and a loud click.  H3-50 is again much more forgiving than the H3BS in this stroke, and yet possibly more effective too.

Blocks/Punches:  My previous complaint about H3-50 unboosted is reversed with booster... blocking is now one of the rubber's strong points.  Passive blocking allowed me to take off a lot of pace from the opponent's attack and to drop the ball short, but with a punch the ball would rocket off my blade with impressive control (and sound once again).  It also seems that the ball had a sharper/shorter trajectory with the H3-50 as opposed to the floaty/straight trajectory of the H3BS.

Chops/Chop-blocks:  Occasionally I chop from my FH side if I am out of position or late to get to a ball, and I did not have any problems with placement or loading enough spin onto the ball with H3-50.  I actually could feel the ball much better with H3-50 than any previous rubber I've used for chopping, including the tenergy series.  Chop-blocks with traditional penhold backhand were well controlled and seem a bit spinner than with the H3BS.

-----

I also briefly tried it on my BH (rpb) after it was boosted and it was far spinner than Tenergy 64 when it comes to looping and flipping the ball.  However, I had a lot of difficulty punching and blocking from my rpb side with H3-50, so I've decided to just stick with T64 on my BH as usual.  It may work better for very aggressive players who do more looping than blocking with their BH (a la Xu Xin?).

http://s1272.photobucket.com/user/steven_chen1/media/IMG_2192_zpsf0262736.jpg.html" rel="nofollow">

Please let me know if I've missed anything, I will happily share my thoughts.  

Nice review.

And I'll be holding on to all my blue sponges for now still - I may return to them in the future when my game improves and calls for something more powerful ;)

+1

I'm thankful for your review, but would like to hear how it does after a week of use without boosting. 

Again to complain, it should be the TA1 sponge, not the TA3 sponge!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I haven't had a chance to play, and probably won't till later in the week, sorry guys.  But here's my initial impressions:

Feel of the rubber on bouncing is deader than I expected, this is a good thing.  Topsheet is quite tacky, holds the ball longer than a month-old sheet of nittaku h3 neo - I was expecting less tacky.  Black rubber looks pretty bad - has that cloudy look of an h3 neo provincial.  But looks don't matter - its still very tacky and probably will go away with use.  Red sheet looks beautiful, very juicy.  Bouncing everything is in line with what I expect from H3, nice bite and pop in the topsheet, a little bit softer feel overall.  This rubber is on the heavier side - probably has added 8 grams to the setup.  A good point for me right now - when I bounce the ball I get a clear feeling in my hand, this is different from say Spin Art / Tau where there is less hand feeling on the same blade.  I'm quite excited to be honest.  Maybe the faster, hard clipper CR will change some of the impressions Steven had untuned (I'm too lazy to tune, I just want something I can put on and be done with)

beeray I was definitely bummed out when I saw the red sponge on the black sheet - cmon guys, really, this is H3, I keep double taking and thinking its a tenergy.   However I've tried tin arc + tin arc 3 and I think the sponges are the same apart from color, its the topsheets that are different.  I might be wrong about that, but my overall feeling from this rubber is more in line with what I remember about tin arc (softer than H3 39, but on the harder side overall)

They still haven't shipped it yet.

I think a carbon blade or fast wood blade would compensate for what I felt the rubber was lacking in place of boosting.  I'm going to give that a try on something faster with another sheet of h3.50 sometime this week.

Also played with it some more today at work to compare it with my backup setup with h3BS and I feel like H3.50 rounds out my game.  My strength has always been being able to put the ball away through good service/superior short game touch and sheer offensive power when attacking, although my blocking and rallying were somewhat poor.  H3BS played towards my strengths while leaving my weaknesses open, but H3.50 takes a bit away from my strongest shots and brings the weaker aspects of my game up to par.  I'm still trying to decide if I like this about H3.50.

At the moment I still have better results with H3BS in match play, but I enjoy playing with H3.50 more. I feel like the biggest reason H3.50 alters my game so much is how soft and bouncy its sponge is.  Hopefully when I get accustomed to it I'll once again be able to produce the same kind of power and touch like I had with the H3BS but with the improved aspects of the game I gained through using the H3.50.

I meet with my coaches and have some much more serious training later this week on thursday and friday (1800-2300 level players) than I've had with the level of play at the club I work at (mostly 1300-1400 level players).  I'll know for sure after that if H3.50 is a keeper for me.

That's the worst! 

I bought a Rosewood NCT V almost two weeks ago, and I was keen to show others of it in my club but it still hasn't arrived.

For those who has ordered from TT11 before, how long does the package take to arrive?

The first time I ordered from Tabletennis11 my order never arrived because of a postal problem.  TT11 was gracious and responsive in refunding my order because of that.  The last order I made took only 5 days to arrive to my address in NYC (amazingly fast).

seems like it would be a nice transition from using tenergy

Well said.  I had issues using it effectively against better players that I didn't have when I used the regular H3.  If paired with a low throw and fast carbon blade, I feel this will make up for problems in speed.  I put mine on a TB ALC-cpen FH instead of my YEO for now and will try it again today.

I'm going to put it on my rosewood clipper when it arrives.

It is my opinion that H3-50 would best suit hitters, as I've never had an easier time with that than with any other inverted rubber.  But for making any sort of threatening loop, I would pick my old H3BS any time.

I want to know if H3-50 is basically using the same sponge as Tin Arc's because I find that sponge a tad bit too soft for me.  

I am all about looping balls and just today I've been working on my fh loop drives (speed) more and for some reason I find H3 Pro to lack power. 

At slower swing speeds yes, at the top end it is about the same.  However if you boost h3commercial, it is faster at faster swing speeds.

Not to delve off topic but... that exists? WHAT? 

I might need to sell 3 Viscarias if that's the case. Two of my all time favorite blades combined into one? WHAT!? 

Mine is still stuck at NY, I wish I can test it soon 

It certainly makes a higher arc than the old H3's.  On the contrary, I love the low arc of the regular H3 which was why I didn't stick with H3-50.  

I feel that H3-50 would be a great transitional rubber for people who normally like high-arc soft-sponged rubbers but don't like the brick feel of traditional hurricanes.  H3-50 required a completely different stroke (probably since of how quickly the ball arcs because of its softness) for me than with typical chinese rubbers to get my loops going.

I tried it on an old Stiga 5-ply blade made in the 60s (I think) which is not very fast, but has a lot of power on loops: it is around 100 grams in weight with a fairly large blade face.

H3-50 is not very fast, but it does not top out either.  I suspect it will get better once it breaks in, but I did not feel it was underpowered.

I can make a bigger loop with  Tinarc 3, for the time being, but I suspect that is partly due to familiarity.

Where H3-50 was much better than I expected is in short game: it seemed a lot less spin sensitive than the regular H3 for some reason, so drop shots, pushes and side spin slides were easy to execute.  FH flip is not my best shot, but it seemed to work OK with H3-50 as well.  

Blocking was decent, but not as good as with Tinarc 3.  Flat hitting is not something I do a whole lot (I think the number of times I hit a flat FH in a match during the last twenty years is in single digits), so I do not have much o fan opinion there.  

I did not try counterlooping, so I can't say much about that.  I counterlooped off the bounce a couple of time and it seemed to work OK, but I will experiment with it mroe.

Ultimately, I am not sure whether I liked it more than Tinarc 3 or not, but it is worth giving a shot.  I will play with it for a bit and see how it works.

ILya

My impressions (coming from tenergy 05 both sides) - USATT 1669, 2 winged looper.

Serving - excellent, very spinny and nice control.

Pushes - again very good, tight control and spiny dig pushes

Opening - So I tried it on both forehand and backhand. Opening is where H3-50 is probably the best. I usually slow loop to open and H3-50 has WAY MORE SPIN than >> tenergy 05. This is probably due to the tack paired with the light brushing contact. So it is great for consistent spinny openings.

Flicks - just like openings, very spinny and nice control.

Power Looping (loop kill) - the speed is slow. Period. So I really had to put my whole body into it to get it past players otherwise it would just get blocked back. I did notice tho that when I did more of an arm (vs body) loop drive, it took a very low arc and was hard to block/counter from mid-distance.

Counterlooping - I think that H3-50 is actually very good for counterlooping bc the spin really helps bring it down (esp when you put a lot of force into the swing from mid or long distance). But you must do this. If your swing is too weak then there is a smaller margin of error than tenergy.

Blocking - good, the tack really slowed things down (too much so compared to tenergy, I wasn't used to it and put many blocks in the net) but adjustments over time should making blocking a breeze.

Hitting - very nice, low arc with great control (i don't do much hitting though)

Conclusions - It's been years (3+), since I've played with any type of hurricane and I realize now why chinese pros love to use it. When you put all your power from your whole body into it, you get an amazing low arc spinny powerful shot. But you have to get your timing down otherwise the power is not completely transferred. 

But for me as a mid-level player, the benefit in serves/short game (keeping it short and spinny) and and opening (spin and consistency) will make my game stronger. Also with the lower power on loop kills, it makes me get ready for the next shot on EVERY shot because it will probably come back even if it is a loop drive/loop kill. So I think for most of us (anyone under USATT 2000), it is a great rubber to use. It will help you develop more precise timing and footwork.

It can mean that the post office has the package but hasn't delivered.

It's a sign from the TT gods. 

Don't switch from regular H3 lol. 

But that sucks man, I'm sorry. Monetary refund? Maybe they're holding it somewhere?