So we warmed up a bit and played a match and all I gotta say is it was terrible! It felt like we were playing with a 1-star practice ball. It was much slower and spin was quite a bit less. It was so funny how he would do his normal chops and I would just hit through them like they were nothing. Normally when we play with the celluloid balls I have to respect his underspin returns and loop them or push them back. The first ball he chopped back I decided to see if I could open my angle a little and hit it and it had so much less spin that I was able to hit it like it was nothing.  Needless to say he didn't like it at all as I won the last game at 2! I've heard a lot of you saying that you just gotta adjust, but damn, it felt like I was playing with a recreational ball. I hope the other plastic balls play better than the DHS ball cause it was definitely taking a big step back in our game. I just can't imagine anyone in charge of our organization allowing this to go on. Please tell me there are better plastic balls to play with.

slow lack of spin is what U are suppose to get use to!!

I believe that we are going to find that the plastic in DHS balls deforms more on high impacts and that this is making the effect of the seam more pronounced when the ball lands on and or spins onto the seam.    I have no proof and only very sketchy evidence.  But given that the seam is a known irregularity, that I've observed celluloid training balls (have seams) exhibit bad bounces, and that the lower bounce of DHS balls might imply more deformation of the plastic, this seems like a good place to start looking.

It sounds plausible.  It's going to be very tricky to prove anything without access to some pretty funky testing equipment though.  It only seemed to happen to me on harder incoming shots, but I've only got a few hours of solid work with this ball so far.

I've got a pack of Yinhe but I've only had a brief test in recent weeks.  The bounce seems more reliable and is higher overall.  The seamless come with their own challenges for me - the biggest one being serving.  I find it quite easy to keep the DHS 40+ really tight on service, whereas the Yinhe sit up a lot more due to the bounce.  Factoring in the reduction in spin, it becomes hard to stop the opponent attacking the serve.  Anything over or near net height is vulnerable now.

I believe that we are going to find that the plastic in DHS balls deforms more on high impacts and that this is making the effect of the seam more pronounced when the ball lands on and or spins onto the seam.    I have no proof and only very sketchy evidence.  But given that the seam is a known irregularity, that I've observed celluloid training balls (have seams) exhibit bad bounces, and that the lower bounce of DHS balls might imply more deformation of the plastic, this seems like a good place to start looking.

agree with you. the seam of the plastic ball make more effect than the celluloid ball, i think different material properties would enlarge the effect, so the seamless ball is the better choice for new material. but there are more business factors to lead the products, although the products is not the best, not suitable for more people.

 

The main point is that none of us should have to get used to the inconsistency in these poor quality balls. It really did feel similar to playing with a 1-star practice ball, and that's just not good for our sport. I may order some seamless balls and give them a try.  What does the new president plan on doing about these plastic balls? Has he come out and said anything yet?

Definitely worth giving the seamless a try.  You'll still feel the bigger size and reduced spin, but they do have a more consistent bounce and appear to be more durable on average.

I think he said "I'll just go ask Adham what I should say..." and no one has seen him since.

We reviewed the DHS ball and also use it for all of our equipment reviews and our equipment expert has a good handle on playing with it now. As we say, it does take some hours to adjust to the plastic ball and some have different properties to others.

The ignorance displayed by the answer speaks for itself.  Thank you.

Just check with the folks who played in or ran the North American Teams. Contrast that to the U.S. Nationals or any other previous tournament played with celluloid balls.

The past breakage issue really isn't debatable.  The only real question is if newly manufactured balls are doing better.

I was actually going to post a few examples of when this happened and the face of the player revealed annoyance but I figured that the only way to do it objectively was to contrast it with the old ball and that is hard.  It happens fairly often with the women because of how close they play to the table.

I was thinking about running a test with DHS balls shot out of my robot and recorded on video to see if I could identify more erratic bounces from DHS 40+ ball in a test that more closely simulated a loop.  But then I asked myself why?  Why go to this kind of trouble to establish this for one person who has ignored so many good points made on this and other topics?  And beside that, until the balls are made more durable I'll avoid buying them anyway - good/consistent bounce or not.

As for longevity, I can give you a reasonable standard based on the tournaments I run.  Our tournaments use an average of about 3 dozen balls per tournament.  We've been getting that many new balls for each of the last dozen or so tournaments and I'm running neither a substantial surplus or deficit.  I always have about a two dozen new and used (mostly new) balls in reserve but never more than three dozen. 

My experienced training for and playing in the open says otherwise.  I also asked some of the folks running the tournament whether what the durability was like and the general response was that it was similar to what they had with celluloid.  Keep in mind that I played a lot of hardbat matches and even sandpaper with the NP40+ and these rackets tend to be more damaging to the balls.  

The only indication of a durability problem that I saw was with one hardbat player who has a particularly hard forehand drive. Of course, for all we know there may be variations in batches.

You mean the same way you have a vague notion of your personal objectivity but still claim it is valid?

Hell yeah!

And like I said, I didn't go in today, but I will go in tomorrow, buy a batch and play exclusively with them.  Film every moment too.  And we will see how long they last.  I am playing tournaments that still use them so I might as well pay the price.

Sure, you don't.  Explains why you feel a need to respond to them with arguments that use the reptilian part of your brain.  

What data shows disagreement?  I have played with every ball.  The Nittaku Premium plastic ball is an wierd animal.  There are some that break fairly quickly, and even when broken, are still fairly playable, sometimes with a cracked sound but sometimes without.  At Nationals, I do not remember breaking a ball, though I did break a couple in the first batch I bought from Japan.  It's pretty clear that some of the balls can be very durable, playing around 7 hours or more.  I still have a couple in my training set at least that old, though others have been broken.  But it's something that people know you can get a good batch or a bad batch with.  And no one questions the consistency or the playability, as the bounce is high and the predictability of the bounce is similar to celluloid.  I would have no problem with someone seriously asking at any time for a serious measurement of how long a NP40+ ball lasts as it is an open and serious question, though bad balls were known to exist (lots of complaints were made at the Euro Team Champs, for example, but not that many I remember at Nationals). For a DHS or Joola ball last year, that question was fairly ridiculous.  We broke the Joolas like eggs at both our club tournament and at the NA Teams.

Because reptiles don't need to know that King Kong is a gazillion feet to run away from him?

Seriously, these balls broke like eggs.  I asked a 12 year old 2100 rated player how frequently the Joola balls broke.  He said he could break 2-3 in 1.5 hours of playing.  I asked an 1800 player who used the DHS against my advice (he enjoyed playing with them) for his estimate - his was an hour of moderate hitting.  Neither visit this site so they are not part of this circle jerk.

That the Joola balls are doing better now jives with the rumors I have heard that they switched manufacturers.  The 1800 player estimated his first Butterfly ball lasted about 6 hours and that it is the best ball he has owned so far, since he has not purchased any seamless or Nittaku Japan balls (like I said, he likes how the DHS ball plays).

So when other balls are lasting up to 7-12 hrs, do you really want to compare and contrast withg measurements?

> I don't get the reason for all this back and forth - why don't we all just ignore Hex?

Generally back and forth is how discussions work. Also despite it all, the appearance that claims are rational is desirable and this perception is lost when someone is poking holes in them.

Anyone have any ball counts and/or experiences that dispute this 10x discrepancy?

The point is not that you are asking for ball counts - the question is that other than a general disrespect for the minds of others, what reason do you have to doubt the discrepancy?

And how is the aggregate expected difference from any one director different from the word on the street given the standards by which it was collected?  Did you query Wturber on his methodology?

You might think you are deceiving people, but the nature of your process is pretty transparent.

No, it's called a limited data set which might be biased even if measured accurately.  Wturber's data is larger, but has not be checked for anything that makes it clearly more rigorous than anything I have mentioned.  What I may do if our tournament director is in tomorrow is to ask him for numbers that contrast the balls we had in November vs. the balls in February.  What will be interesting is whether that result will met with another smart aleck remark or the same level of acceptance you displayed when you saw Wturber's stats.

Note that the Junior I asked bought 72 of these balls to practice for the NA teams tournament.  None of the balls survived that training period.  I bought 30, none of which survived either.  So word on the street or not, we aren't players who have just used a few of these balls.

I agree that NP40+ balls pick up dirt and look natty quickly.  In fact, they start out a duller white to begin with.  But they still played fine in my experience.  If the ball not being bright white is an issue for a player, then the NP40+'s will probably disappoint in that area.

We have rubber-covered concreted floors and can sometimes hit the concrete wall with hard shots on some of our main tables.  Maybe that explains the difference in breakage rate, though it doesn't explain why our seamless balls and Nittaku Premiums tend to do relatively well.

The point for me is that when you are paying over $2/ball, the ball should be clearly durable in a manner similar to the previous $2 celluloid balls.  Heuristic evaluation is perfectly sufficient for most situations involving table tennis balls - especially when there are good alternatives.  For large tournaments or in situations where large numbers of balls will be purchased, then something more objective/quantitative would be better.

 

Who do you think your barely informed posts are fooling?  The truth is that 3.5 hours would be a pleasant surprise to most people, and would be surprising to someone who used these balls regularly.  It would mean that there have to be some really good balls whose playability lasts beyond 5 hours, probably much longer.  Maybe for balls produced this year from Butterfly and Joola, that is plausible and even reasonable, but for balls last year and even the DHS balls that I will be testing today, that is very unlikely.

 

Baal and I have to the degree we can reconciled it to differences in club surroundings.  But it's a very simple thing to track.  If a ball doesn't break, we can at least look at what condition it is in.  The one thing that biases all of the people I asked is that we all play in the same club. But like I said, this doesn't explain why we don't break other ball types at the same rate.

 

But like I have said, when you have no faith in human beings, you make up all kinds of reasons to believe they are liars.

I polled a few more people, none of whom AFAIK visits here (mytt).  I know that none of this is a substitute for precise measurements but just to show people how out of the loop AgentHex is with his trolling.

 

One high level player told me he breaks 5 a night during topspin play, but it is what it is because his club plays for his balls. 

 

Another player 1800+ said "very quickly - I hate how it bounces."  Now he puts his estimate at 2 hours and he plays in a high school gym with wooden floors so that might be it.

 

My coach puts his estimate at 1 hour, though it depends on who is using it,  It often doesn't last more than a match or two.  OF course, he coaches at our club and coaches all the players I sampled at my club so far so he is just another perspective on the same result.

In case it was missed, the point of my post was to provide a halfway decent benchmark on what we have been seeing with a good quality celluloid ball (Nittaku Premium 3* celluloid).  That's all.

Yes, I've had that happen as well.  But it is countered by the fact that the previous ball played fine for over 20 matches.  If I can average a use of about one ball per week (for match play) and pay $1.50 or less per ball, I'm happy.  That's a little worse than I had with celluloid (I bought in bulk for $1/ball), but its close.  So far the seamless balls appear to be delivering that for me.