Donic Acuda S1

I tried some tonight. I'm convinced it's a Vega Pro clone with a white sponge. I'd like to hear the opinion of others who may have tried both.

despoticwalnut wrote: I was curious when someone would review this as I enjoyed Barracuda.

After playing with Tenergy 05 for a few weeks, this was a mixed bag. I had double the control, but 3/4 of the speed and about 1/2 the spin (slight exaggeration, but you get my meaning). More of my shots landed on the table but more of them came back, too.

I was loving the control and actually playing fairly well. But... my partner said my loops weren't nearly as fast or as spinny as usual. It brought me to a dilemma.

Tenergy is a mixed bag of another sort, for me. My good shots are better and my bad shots aren't really worse or more frequent (after adapting a bit). Except... for me, there is no passive blocking with Tenergy. Every shot has to be active. If someone loops and I just stick my paddle out then, no matter the angle, the block goes long.

In short, I'm trying to decide if I should stay with Tenergy and figure it out (i.e., attempt to get better by using it) or if I should downgrade to something that I don't have to focus as hard on so I can worry more about my footwork, etc.

For me who is old, and slow footed, blocking is so important.  If my 3rd ball loop gets return, chances are I do not have time to reset and go for the big 5th, so I will definitely stay away from any setup that does not allow me to block that quick return.

icontek and Leshxa:

Thanks for your input. These are precisely the variables I'm considering and hearing it from others is encouraging. I may indeed stick with a more controlled setup, at least for the next 6 months or even year. We'll see.

Now, back to the thread... Has anyone tried both Acuda S1 and Vega Pro? I'm having difficulty discriminating any differences between the two. I know they both come from ESN so it's not an unlikely possibility. Any thoughts?

I'm playing with the S1 on my backhand right now (had the Express1 before), and I'm starting to love it more and more actually. I'm really not enough of a EJ to be bothered to read a massive review, but in short the rubber is:

- Plenty spinny, just as spinny as Tenergy05 in my opinion.
- Definitely slower than 05 by far
- Awesome! control

the main difference between 05 and S1 is that 05 has a much more agressive catapult effect, which for me is perfect on my FH but too fast for my BH.

At high levels the S1 is probably too slow for agressive FH play, but quite possibly perfect on the BH for a player who likes hard rubbers (like me f.x).

At lower levels (probably like 1800 and downwards), S1 could be great on the FH-side imo (depending on how well it serves, which I haven't tested), but too difficult to handle on the BH.

Anton Chigurh wrote: despoticwalnut wrote: I was curious when someone would review this as I enjoyed Barracuda. After playing with Tenergy 05 for a few weeks, this was a mixed bag. I had double the control, but 3/4 of the speed and about 1/2 the spin (slight exaggeration, but you get my meaning). More of my shots landed on the table but more of them came back, too. I was loving the control and actually playing fairly well. But... my partner said my loops weren't nearly as fast or as spinny as usual. It brought me to a dilemma.Tenergy is a mixed bag of another sort, for me. My good shots are better and my bad shots aren't really worse or more frequent (after adapting a bit). Except... for me, there is no passive blocking with Tenergy. Every shot has to be active. If someone loops and I just stick my paddle out then, no matter the angle, the block goes long.In short, I'm trying to decide if I should stay with Tenergy and figure it out (i.e., attempt to get better by using it) or if I should downgrade to something that I don't have to focus as hard on so I can worry more about my footwork, etc.

Just give it a decent amount of time to adjust. Just leave it on for a while. See what happens. You can work on your footwork AND leave Tenergy on there. Edit: If it is way out of control for you, that is a different story.

petermoo wrote: Anton Chigurh wrote: petermoo wrote: 3/4 the speed and only 1/2 the spin of Tenergy sounds really bad. Donic says its faster than Baracuda and as spinny so this rubber sounds like a real dud based on your findings. You also said its a Vega Pro clone and I wondered why someone would clone an unknown rubber with little or no reputation (or following)when its probably just as easy to clone a successful rubber. That was an exaggeration. It actually generates decent spin and speed, and like the poster above says, it has great control. It's just not comparable to Tenergy 05 in my opinion. And, I still think it's a clone of Vega Pro.But, maybe "clone" isn't the right word. What I mean is, many companies get their rubbers from the same source: ESN. I'm fairly confident that XIOM and Donic are both supplied by ESN. Therefore, many tensors are simply different brand versions of similar (or even the exact same) thing. So Acuda S1 probably isn't a "clone", in that it is a copy of Vega Pro, but it may just be a version of the same ESN rubber that Donic has branded. I don't think it's a bad thing, as I like Vega Pro. The rubber (Vega Pro and Acuda S1) have different characteristics than Tenergy, so they're not replacements by any means. But, for people under 1800 I think they're forgiving tensors with nice performance. Anton, I dont think I can agree with your basic premise which is that all rubbers made by a certain manufacturer will be similar. If that were so then we could have just never tried the Tenergy's at all by just saying "oh they are made at the same factory as Sriver of Bryce" and we know that they are very different. I am sure T64 and T25 are made at the same factory and they are way different from each other. In these days of contract manufacturing, many products are made by common vendors but they are built to the brands' specifications to produce the item that blends with the branders philosophy, marketing thrusts etc. I have tested hundreds of rubbers from every possible source and I have found great variation even within the same brand and in some cases even within the same batch of the same rubber. I have found that the successful leading edge companies like Butterfly , Donic and Nitakku are more on the cutting edge and are constantly pushing new development in their products so I would be very surprised if they would re-badge an unknown and unsuccessful product from a lesser known company when they are already making better stuff. Having said that I would be curious to see this Vega Pro you speak of but I have never seen seen or heard any player speaking of it! Petermoo

There is a William Henzell's review about Xiom Vega Pro. He said some good things about it...

petermoo wrote: Anton, I dont think I can agree with your basic premise which is that all rubbers made by a certain manufacturer will be similar. If that were so then we could have just never tried the Tenergy's at all by just saying "oh they are made at the same factory as Sriver of Bryce" and we know that they are very different. I am sure T64 and T25 are made at the same factory and they are way different from each other. In these days of contract manufacturing, many products are made by common vendors but they are built to the brands' specifications to produce the item that blends with the branders philosophy, marketing thrusts etc. I have tested hundreds of rubbers from every possible source and I have found great variation even within the same brand and in some cases even within the same batch of the same rubber. I have found that the successful leading edge companies like Butterfly , Donic and Nitakku are more on the cutting edge and are constantly pushing new development in their products so I would be very surprised if they would re-badge an unknown and unsuccessful product from a lesser known company when they are already making better stuff. Having said that I would be curious to see this Vega Pro you speak of but I have never seen seen or heard any player speaking of it! Petermoo

I tend to be overly verbose, so I was trying to be concise and I believe I oversimplified my claim. I apologize. Of course I realize that the same company is capable of producing different rubbers. Sriver is not Tenergy, and Hexer is not Roxon, etc.

In addition, I'm not "in the business" of rubber production so my understanding could be completely incorrect and I'll state that up front. However, I have heard others who do seem to understand the business state that ESN produces rubbers for various companies. As I understand it, most if not all "Euro" rubbers basically translate as "ESN" rubbers... but that could be an oversimplification too. I believe debraj may be able to add some clarity to what I'm trying to say, or perhaps he can correct me if I'm way off.

Anyway, as I understand it, ESN makes different "generations" of rubbers and then distributes them among the companies it supplies. There are certainly permutations of sponge/topsheet combinations, which allows ESN to better tailor their rubbers to their customers' specifications. But as far as I understand, they don't "start from scratch" for each company. They take a few sponges and a few topsheets and mix and match them to create definitive differences... but they are not worlds apart.

For example, I'm sitting here looking at a sheet of XIOM Vega Pro, Donic Acuda S1, and Andro Hexer. All of them have almost identical sponges (the Hexer pores seem just slightly bigger) and nearly identical topsheets. I haven't had a chance to play with Hexer yet but as I stated, the Acuda S1 and Vega Pro play almost identically. They also all happen to come from ESN.

Another caveat is the possibility that I'm simply not a high enough level player to be able to distinguish the subtle differences. That's why I'm wanting your opinion.

So, I'm willing to send you an unopened sheet of XIOM Vega Pro to compare to the Donic Acuda S1, if you're interested. If you've tried the Hexer too, then I'd like to know what you think about how they are similar/different. But if you're not interested then I understand.

Send me a PM with your address if you're interested.

P.S. Regarding Vega Pro, my coach lives in Korea and says that Vega has a decent following there. Not phenomenal or anything, but it's fairly popular. Of course, XIOM is a Korean company so it makes sense that it's more popular there. XIOM is a fairly new company so I don't think the fact that their rubbers aren't really popular is a definitive testimony of its quality. New companies can remain in obscurity for quite a while. But still, I would no longer argue that Vega Pro can compete with Tenergy by any means.

S1 isn't the best!

austin wrote: wait do you own all that rubber including that jewel t05fx?!!?!

austin wrote: =[][][][] would you trade some to me i have some stuff i really would like some of that.

austin wrote: >=/ hmmm how did you get it just wondering?

Anton Chigurh wrote: petermoo wrote: Anton, I dont think I can agree with your basic premise which is that all rubbers made by a certain manufacturer will be similar. If that were so then we could have just never tried the Tenergy's at all by just saying "oh they are made at the same factory as Sriver of Bryce" and we know that they are very different. I am sure T64 and T25 are made at the same factory and they are way different from each other. In these days of contract manufacturing, many products are made by common vendors but they are built to the brands' specifications to produce the item that blends with the branders philosophy, marketing thrusts etc. I have tested hundreds of rubbers from every possible source and I have found great variation even within the same brand and in some cases even within the same batch of the same rubber. I have found that the successful leading edge companies like Butterfly , Donic and Nitakku are more on the cutting edge and are constantly pushing new development in their products so I would be very surprised if they would re-badge an unknown and unsuccessful product from a lesser known company when they are already making better stuff. Having said that I would be curious to see this Vega Pro you speak of but I have never seen seen or heard any player speaking of it! Petermoo I tend to be overly verbose, so I was trying to be concise and I believe I oversimplified my claim. I apologize. Of course I realize that the same company is capable of producing different rubbers. Sriver is not Tenergy, and Hexer is not Roxon, etc. In addition, I'm not "in the business" of rubber production so my understanding could be completely incorrect and I'll state that up front. However, I have heard others who do seem to understand the business state that ESN produces rubbers for various companies. As I understand it, most if not all "Euro" rubbers basically translate as "ESN" rubbers... but that could be an oversimplification too. I believe debraj may be able to add some clarity to what I'm trying to say, or perhaps he can correct me if I'm way off.Anyway, as I understand it, ESN makes different "generations" of rubbers and then distributes them among the companies it supplies. There are certainly permutations of sponge/topsheet combinations, which allows ESN to better tailor their rubbers to their customers' specifications. But as far as I understand, they don't "start from scratch" for each company. They take a few sponges and a few topsheets and mix and match them to create definitive differences... but they are not worlds apart.For example, I'm sitting here looking at a sheet of XIOM Vega Pro, Donic Acuda S1, and Andro Hexer. All of them have almost identical sponges (the Hexer pores seem just slightly bigger) and nearly identical topsheets. I haven't had a chance to play with Hexer yet but as I stated, the Acuda S1 and Vega Pro play almost identically. They also all happen to come from ESN. Another caveat is the possibility that I'm simply not a high enough level player to be able to distinguish the subtle differences. That's why I'm wanting your opinion.So, I'm willing to send you an unopened sheet of XIOM Vega Pro to compare to the Donic Acuda S1, if you're interested. If you've tried the Hexer too, then I'd like to know what you think about how they are similar/different. But if you're not interested then I understand. Send me a PM with your address if you're interested.P.S. Regarding Vega Pro, my coach lives in Korea and says that Vega has a decent following there. Not phenomenal or anything, but it's fairly popular. Of course, XIOM is a Korean company so it makes sense that it's more popular there. XIOM is a fairly new company so I don't think the fact that their rubbers aren't really popular is a definitive testimony of its quality. New companies can remain in obscurity for quite a while. But still, I would no longer argue that Vega Pro can compete with Tenergy by any means.

Accepted.
I am more than willing to try out this rubber and compare side by side with Acuda S1.
I will PM you my details. This is gonna be interesting.

Petermoo

Anton Chigurh wrote: petermoo wrote: Anton, I dont think I can agree with your basic premise which is that all rubbers made by a certain manufacturer will be similar. If that were so then we could have just never tried the Tenergy's at all by just saying "oh they are made at the same factory as Sriver of Bryce" and we know that they are very different. I am sure T64 and T25 are made at the same factory and they are way different from each other. In these days of contract manufacturing, many products are made by common vendors but they are built to the brands' specifications to produce the item that blends with the branders philosophy, marketing thrusts etc. I have tested hundreds of rubbers from every possible source and I have found great variation even within the same brand and in some cases even within the same batch of the same rubber. I have found that the successful leading edge companies like Butterfly , Donic and Nitakku are more on the cutting edge and are constantly pushing new development in their products so I would be very surprised if they would re-badge an unknown and unsuccessful product from a lesser known company when they are already making better stuff. Having said that I would be curious to see this Vega Pro you speak of but I have never seen seen or heard any player speaking of it! Petermoo I tend to be overly verbose, so I was trying to be concise and I believe I oversimplified my claim. I apologize. Of course I realize that the same company is capable of producing different rubbers. Sriver is not Tenergy, and Hexer is not Roxon, etc. In addition, I'm not "in the business" of rubber production so my understanding could be completely incorrect and I'll state that up front. However, I have heard others who do seem to understand the business state that ESN produces rubbers for various companies. As I understand it, most if not all "Euro" rubbers basically translate as "ESN" rubbers... but that could be an oversimplification too. I believe debraj may be able to add some clarity to what I'm trying to say, or perhaps he can correct me if I'm way off. Anyway, as I understand it, ESN makes different "generations" of rubbers and then distributes them among the companies it supplies. There are certainly permutations of sponge/topsheet combinations, which allows ESN to better tailor their rubbers to their customers' specifications. But as far as I understand, they don't "start from scratch" for each company. They take a few sponges and a few topsheets and mix and match them to create definitive differences... but they are not worlds apart. For example, I'm sitting here looking at a sheet of XIOM Vega Pro, Donic Acuda S1, and Andro Hexer. All of them have almost identical sponges (the Hexer pores seem just slightly bigger) and nearly identical topsheets. I haven't had a chance to play with Hexer yet but as I stated, the Acuda S1 and Vega Pro play almost identically. They also all happen to come from ESN. Another caveat is the possibility that I'm simply not a high enough level player to be able to distinguish the subtle differences. That's why I'm wanting your opinion. So, I'm willing to send you an unopened sheet of XIOM Vega Pro to compare to the Donic Acuda S1, if you're interested. If you've tried the Hexer too, then I'd like to know what you think about how they are similar/different. But if you're not interested then I understand. Send me a PM with your address if you're interested. P.S. Regarding Vega Pro, my coach lives in Korea and says that Vega has a decent following there. Not phenomenal or anything, but it's fairly popular. Of course, XIOM is a Korean company so it makes sense that it's more popular there. XIOM is a fairly new company so I don't think the fact that their rubbers aren't really popular is a definitive testimony of its quality. New companies can remain in obscurity for quite a while. But still, I would no longer argue that Vega Pro can compete with Tenergy by any means.

Hm, this is an interesting conversation that I'd like to throw my two cents into.

I think it should be kept in mind that at ESN they wouldn't have finished topsheets and sponges laying around for assembly for different companies. There would be raw materials waiting to be processed into topsheets and sponges. Finished products would age and have a shelf life and couldn't be unmade and remade into something else if a new order came in. And also that two products can have the exact same physical appearance while having significantly different chemical compositions. ESN is a subcontractor who builds a product to a primary contrator's specifications. Many factories perform this role because the companies ordering products do not need to maintain a fulltime factory with employees and such when they only need to produce products sporadically. If an automobile manufacturer is building a new car, they don't make the tires for the car, they work with a subcontractor to either choose an existing product of the subcontractor's that works, or work with the subcontractor to create a new tire that meets their requirements (like Bugatti did working with Michelin when creating the Veyron).So the idea Petermoo is proposing that the rubbers are tailored to each table tennis company's specification sounds like it would be reasonable.

From the business standpoint, it would seem illogical for ESN to continue to subcontract work for so many companies if they were the ones shouldering all of the development costs and were the ones creating all of the rubber. You could just quit distributing to Donic, Yasaka, Joola, Andro, Xiom, etc. and start marketing the products and kill two birds with one stone: eliminate a vast majority of the competition and make more money. It would also mean that companies like Donic, Joola, Xiom, etc. were really more distributors than rubber companies because they would just be putting their name on a product rather than developing one.

I have faith that all of the rubber manufacturers out there using ESN to produce their rubbers are the ones driving development and shouldering the financial burden. Petermoo touched on the fact that these companies are also learning how to better make rubbers in this speed glue-free era. I think also that after so many years of development and the emergence of one major playing style (looping attacker), that it has driven most rubber to fall into a very small window to appeal to the mass market and make the most returns.

I wonder how much it is materials and manufacture limited it will be in the future though... The price flexibility is so small on the final product. Like if they could develop a super sponge that took an extremely expensive manufacturing process to make that drove up the cost of the final product to $200usd a unit, but produced a rubber that did play exactly as speed glued rubber, how many people would buy it? I wish a company would be ballsy enough to try and find out.

BMonkey wrote: Hm, this is an interesting conversation that I'd like to throw my two cents into. I think it should be kept in mind that at ESN they wouldn't have finished topsheets and sponges laying around for assembly for different companies. There would be raw materials waiting to be processed into topsheets and sponges. Finished products would age and have a shelf life and couldn't be unmade and remade into something else if a new order came in. And also that two products can have the exact same physical appearance while having significantly different chemical compositions. ESN is a subcontractor who builds a product to a primary contrator's specifications. Many factories perform this role because the companies ordering products do not need to maintain a fulltime factory with employees and such when they only need to produce products sporadically. If an automobile manufacturer is building a new car, they don't make the tires for the car, they work with a subcontractor to either choose an existing product of the subcontractor's that works, or work with the subcontractor to create a new tire that meets their requirements (like Bugatti did working with Michelin when creating the Veyron).So the idea Petermoo is proposing that the rubbers are tailored to each table tennis company's specification sounds like it would be reasonable.

Definite critical-thinking skills at work. Thanks for posting! For the sake of a friendly discussion, I'd like to address some stuff. But I need to caveat up front that I have no experience in table tennis rubber manufacturing, nor do I know anyone who does. So, this is all conjecture on my part.

I wouldn't claim that they have all these separate finished materials (sponges and top sheets) just lying around, collecting dust, and waiting to be assembled. Sorry if my previous post implied that--again, in my drive to be concise I ended up over-simplifying yet again. I certainly agree with your claim that they probably have raw materials waiting around to processed. I simply meant to suggest that ESN likely comes up with a particular "formula" for a generation of rubbers, and then only tinker with that formula (sponge densities, pip structures) to generate variations on a basic idea, which are then sold to other companies to be branded and distributed.

BMonkey wrote: From the business standpoint, it would seem illogical for ESN to continue to subcontract work for so many companies if they were the ones shouldering all of the development costs and were the ones creating all of the rubber. You could just quit distributing to Donic, Yasaka, Joola, Andro, Xiom, etc. and start marketing the products and kill two birds with one stone: eliminate a vast majority of the competition and make more money. It would also mean that companies like Donic, Joola, Xiom, etc. were really more distributors than rubber companies because they would just be putting their name on a product rather than developing one.

Illogical or not, it happens all the time. There are many companies that manufacture... absolutely nothing. (Tommy Hilfiger is one, for example.) They are simply a brand and they outsource all their manufacturing jobs to overseas companies. I would venture a guess that there are different liabilities and overhead expenses on either side, and each company has specialized in one side or the other--marketing vs. manufacturing. I think your last sentence above is probably pretty close to the reality of the situation. But again, I'm purely speculating.

BMonkey wrote: I have faith that all of the rubber manufacturers out there using ESN to produce their rubbers are the ones driving development and shouldering the financial burden. Petermoo touched on the fact that these companies are also learning how to better make rubbers in this speed glue-free era. I think also that after so many years of development and the emergence of one major playing style (looping attacker), that it has driven most rubber to fall into a very small window to appeal to the mass market and make the most returns.

Excellent point, and it may very well be correct. It could simply be that all these companies' demands are just converging on some basic desired characteristics. However, that would also support the idea that ESN can simply come up with a basic formula for a product and then slightly modify it for each brand. To me, it seems that some of these modifications amount to no more than changing the color of the sponge.

I've tried Hexer, Vega Pro, and Acuda S1. In addition to them all looking almost identical, they also all play almost identical. I realize that this is not sufficient to conclude that my intuition about their source is correct, but it does seem to be a kind of evidence. What's more, on both the Vega Pro and the Hexer, there are trademarked ESN "technology" stamps. (I.e. "tensor" with the little box and arrows, and "bios".) This further suggests that, if not the same, then at least ESN uses similar technology across a range of products that they distribute to various brands. Again though, it's not definitive proof by any means. I'm just playing pseudo-detective. (Also, haven't you heard? I'm a pseudo-intellectual too. )

BMonkey wrote: I wonder how much it is materials and manufacture limited it will be in the future though... The price flexibility is so small on the final product. Like if they could develop a super sponge that took an extremely expensive manufacturing process to make that drove up the cost of the final product to $200usd a unit, but produced a rubber that did play exactly as speed glued rubber, how many people would buy it? I wish a company would be ballsy enough to try and find out.

Regarding your closing idea, I've wondered the same thing too. And I'm embarrassed to say that I'd buy it at least once... just to say I've tried it.