Nittaku Meister HolzSieben review courtesy of TT11

Here's my review of the blade (courtesy of tabletennis11).

Here is my review!

Appearance:

This is one absolutely incredibly beautiful blade to gaze at. The wood selection, the handle design, and all the small detailing are just wonderful. SoulSpin can really put a blade together. Even the box the blade comes in has a clever grin-inducing sliding mechanism. Marvellous.

Speed:

Clearly OFF, with some notes in the margin. In general play, it feels solid, smooth, powerful.   Definitely up there with other 7 ply woods in terms of middle gear speed (Clipper, Korbel SK7). However, there is a slight damping effect on slower, touchy shots. This reminds me of the usual hinoki-outered crowd, but not as pronounced an effect. As sid mentioned above, once you start putting effort in, the blade gives a catapult “kick” feel, so although it’s quite stiff you don’t feel a lack of power until you’re a long way away from the table – almost to the car park in fact.

That said, power delivery is very smooth and no surprises await you. Very easy to use for a powerful blade.

Feel:

I’d cautiously call it medium feel. As already mentioned, it has a little of the feel of hinoki, but with more resistance. Meaning that the soft/bouncy feel you would associate with hinoki isn’t as pronounced or obvious unless you’re really hitting hard. It just takes a little of the edge (sharpness/bounciness) away from the short game, and adds a little catapult to everything else.

The great thing is the feeling of “grab”, and the way this is linked to the overall speed and stiffness. The harder you hit the more elastic the response is, as you would expect. But it feels like there is a corresponding increase in dwell too, so the result is faster balls with more arc, which drop to the table at the last moment.

There is a feeling of harmony with this blade. All the features feel like they have been carefully balanced against each other to produce something which just works beautifully. German engineering, for sure.

In Play:

This blade is an absolute loop monster. It supports a looping game so well, you probably won’t want to play any other type of stroke. But you probably will have to at some point, so…

Blocking is generally excellent.   The reassuringly solid construction, combined with the medium feel, mean that it’s pretty easy to be precise and accurate with most blocks. When combined with softer/bouncier rubbers, it did become a little too bouncy when dealing with very high incoming speeds, but nothing too bad (I’ve used far more challenging 7 ply all-woods in the past in this department).

It’s not a smashing machine. It can do a job, but it doesn’t have the outright put-away speed to excel at flat hitting. It’s accurate, and there is a nice, clean feeling to hitting. If you’re predominately a smasher you won’t be looking at this blade anyway I suppose, and you wouldn’t be using it for what it works best at – looping.

It’s good over the table. It’s better than it should be really, considering all the other factors (speed/feel/stiffness). Again, it’s a bit bouncy with softer rubbers, so you might pop up the odd push from time to time.

Overall:

This is the best 7 ply all-wood looping blade I’ve ever used. It produces amazingly high-quality results while not really sacrificing much in any other area. If I wasn’t more of a hitter on the BH wing I’d get one of these tomorrow, regardless of the price. I’m still tempted to get one anyway – the loop feeling was just that good.

My three test setups were T64-FX/Tenzone Ultra – Rhyzm 425/Omega V Pro – JP03/H3N. It wasn’t the best with the H3N for me – too slow overall. But it was an absolute pearl with Tenzone Ultra on the FH – an amazing combination. The T64-FX was bouncy at times. The JP03 lacked a little pace and left a bit spongy in the low gears, but produced brilliant active shots on the BH side.

A beauty! A bit to pricey for this old frog.