-what lead you to it

-are you still using the blade

Many years ago...can't remember...

1) These are the 3.

- Dr Neubauer Hercule, Anatomic.

- Donic Waldner Offensive 40, Anatomic.

- Darker Speed 90 Jpen w/bonus - sheet of new Butterfly T80.

2) What led me to buy these 3?

- Always curious about Dr. NeuBauer Hercules - so beautiful & excellent quality.

- Affordability & discontinuity of Donic Waldner Off 40. It is high quality to me & also its comfortable handle

- Always wanna own/play w/ DS 90 Jpen & its high quality is just astonishing.

3) Do I still play w/ these 3?

- Nah....no chance or never get around to play any of the above...

Doh, why so, bxtch?

Because OSP Virtuoso - & Virtuoso Plus Anatomic have been winning my heart & keeping me stunned, happy & busy.

These are just my honest thoughts.

LOL?

I wanted the power of the C555 with a better handle and a more woody feel. It has a low gear and a high gear. It is a very, very good blade. Touch shots, hitting from close and looping from mid distance are what it does well.
I play with this every week. 

I wanted a blade for the plastic ball and wasn't happy with my Virtuoso or the Virtuoso+ as an OFF- blade for looping and touch shots. I was told that C555 carbon was perfect for the plastic ball. They were right. It was very linear and stable. It blocked and hit better than anything I had played with, but still looped well and had good touch.
I am not using it anymore because I did not like the handle wings; uncomfortable.

Nittaku Miyabi Jan/Feb: wanted a hinoki blade since forever as shakehand as for a penhold I never want anything else when I used to play penholder and also love my hinoki outer blades. Amazing spin, good blocks but too thick on the short game for me.

Loki red flame (7ply with rosewood outer): bought as an experiment and also to see my play with Chinese equipment again (used to only use Chinese rubber, even once h3 FH tg3 by) worked really well, good speed and controlz was paired with battle 2 blue sponge and focus snipe 3 bh. 

Worked really well, backhand was very competitive with the control of focus snipe and the powerful punches from rosewood. Forehand was powerful as hell but the difficulty of producing spin compared to inneracl and tensors made it harder to open up and place the ball wider while the power was nice actually people found blocking easier. 

Next equipment to buy: I want to try the HL5 or 5x but probably not. As apparently it's a little slower and also I want to get a blade that supports the best player ever! I suspect it will make no difference at all to my game.

- Tibhar Fortino Pro

- Butterfly Harimoto ALC

- W968 National 2016 Edition

- What are the reasons or what led you to buy these 3?

- Do you still play with these?

Butterfly Hadraw SR 100 grams FL - because I like the craftsmanship. It is also solid blade.

STIGA DynaPower Master 102 grams - I was curious about this model and I found it, at least.

It is 9 (nine) ply blade, one of the rarest and hard to find editions among the old STIGA blades.

Very spiny, very hard and good catapult offensive blade. I will probably like more the LEGEND handle, which is slightly bigger, but today is very hard to find this old model. Many people think that Dynapower is something like STIGA Clipper - no, it's not. Dynapower is more harder and with completely different playing skills and sense.

Cor Du Buy Hinoki 9mm 100 grams - because I am in love with Cor Du Buy blades and it is always happiness to find a blade by the forgotten master of the old handmade blades. Each blade made by this person is a kind of art. Only people with passion to old blades could understand that. I usually know very well the model Bert van der Helm which handles are on this hinoki wood, but never supposed there is a chance this model to have also 9mm hinoki wood version. Unbelievable. And that blade has cool catapult, control and wonderful sense. Combined with the huge playing surface I think there is not any possibility for replacement. 1 of million is that blade. I am not sure if it is made by request or just some experimental piece, but it is fact that hinoki blade is made by the greatest masters of the individual professional blades all time and now it is in my hands!

Just because you can never have enough viscarias 

Never used it

Carbonado 90 in 2018

Wanted to have something with more dwell time than the viscaria I was using at that time. And I got it for a really cheap price.

Not using it anymore

Innerforce ALC in 2019

I liked the feeling of the Carbonado, but was afraid it would splinter like many stiga blades. Since it costs 150 new and I didn’t think it was worth that much, I decided to buy an alternative with better quality. And I also didn’t like the throw angle of the Carbonado 90

Still using it.

No, he is from Netherlands and died several years ago. All his life he made custom bats for professional players. I still have some of them. This B.v.d.Helm hinoki is just amazing!

The Fortino Pro: I collect all blades that Samsonov plays/has played with. Kind of a hobby. I was also interested in testing the Dyneema carbon fabric. It is a VERY fast blade but great for block and drive. Unless you are very high level (2400+) it does not pair well with very fast rubbers IMO. I tried it with MX-P and Joola AGR and with the AGR it become a rocket launcher.

Butterfly Harimoto ALC: I always liked inner-fiber blades but the IF ALC was too slow for me. The Harimoto ALC is IMO the best IF blade that Butterfly has made today and its fantastic for a two-winged looping play style. Lots of spin, lots of control without being slow. 

W968: Always wanted the Ma Long setup. Had the opportunity to buy it from a trusted source and got the H3N Nationals on both sides, boosted with Seamon. It's ultimately not for me coz I don't work hard enough to utilize chinese rubbers effectively but it was great to compare the W968 to the HL5 and see just how different they are. Literally don't play like the same blade.

Can you elaborate on the difference?

Overall the W968 is significantly more linear in its speed/power, has a more solid, dwelly feel to it and obviously the balance point is different due to the headsize (larger). For me, it excelled in loops and is probably the best mid-distance looping blade that I've tried. Great speed, really good spin production and superb feel. In addition, there's certainly also the intangible of looking at the W968 serial number, remembering that this blade won more World Championships and Olympic title than any other in recent years.

Is it worth the price difference? I don't know, depends how you look at it.

Just because you can never have enough viscarias 

Lastly I did the sensible thing and . . .

A DHS 968 national n°1 for testing

A custom goriki from Gerry Yu as back up blade

2020

2: harimoto super zlc never played with and traded for a golden tag Viscaria 

3: Nittaku Mima Ito carbon st 

Haven't bought any in 2020, but the last three blades I tested were the Tibhar Shang Kun Hybrid ZC, the Yasaka Falck Carbon, and the Andro Kanter CO OFF.

The three blades I tested in 2020 and liked the best were the Andro Gauzy SL, Stiga Legacy Carbon, and Stiga Carbonado 45. 

Butterfly Innerforce Layer ALC (Beautiful)

SDC zlc inner blade — the one the scammer didn’t buy (Beautiful workmanship)

Stiga Legacy Carbon FL, not sure about weight yet and it was one sale from Dandoy

* Yinhe V14 Pro

I wanted a Viscaria, but it was a bit too expensive and I concluded that I would probably could not feel the difference.

I played it twice, it is great blade.

* Yinhe J1 JPEN

I wanted JPEN blade so much :D 

It is probably the most fun to play blade that I have.

* XVT Balsa Carbon 10mm

I wanted cheap good blade for Superblock, and I think it is :)

Looking forward to buying another one.  The blade is so good with Dignics 05

The friend bought my harimoto Szlc like it a lot.  Boosted H3 Neo blue sponge make a 1800 beat up bunch of 2100s easily!  I will buy one with St handle too

2. Harimoto sZLC - Heard good stories, amazing blade, still using this as my main blade

3. Donic Waldner Dotec Carbon - Just for the comfort of the grip. 

2. Nittaku Ludeack 86gr. straight. Reason - better quality blade than Fextra. Totally disappointed with this one. Thin handle. Extremely head heavy balance with two T05. My wrist started to hurt from the first session. Got better after a whole month not using it. With two soft light rubbers is good. 

3. Stuor special blade two-sided heterogeneous Long 5. Reason - EJ. In transit. 

Stiga Legacy Carbon reminds me of Donic Black Devil but with a standard size while Black Devil is 153*150

yinhe made a dynapower clone.

maybe you like it

https://www.amazon.com/GALAXY-Yinhe-Challenge-Classic-Tennis/dp/B01JFZNZV6" rel="nofollow - https://www.amazon.com/GALAXY-Yinhe-Challenge-Classic-Tennis/dp/B01JFZNZV6