Easy Tiger- its called pre-selection. They do make the rackets all the same, but not all is identical i suppose. There is a QC control and the better ones is sold locally and selected for certain orgs or countries. Of course Yonex will not claim or give proof. Its hard to argue over this matter. Just get a hold of an TH racket.. probably you will know why. Ive used TH's and own THs Coded before. I would rather invest on SPs than THs even TH coded racket is MUCH MUCH cheaper. Probably for some dont even care if its TH or SP or JP. A racket is a racket. If it breaks.. buy another one.
Mine is NZ coded, so I have no idea what that means or if it means anything at all short of where to send it back. Yeah, curious to see what you think, Twobeer. I almost jumped on the TC700 bandwagon except it was too difficult to get and too expensive.
What you're saying conforms to the quality normal-distribution curve. I see the point of segregating the specimen off the higher end of the production curve and branding them slightly more expensively although I find it interesting that they chose to give the "less fortunate" ones to the lesser known countries (TH for example) for distribution. Although IMHO the only thing that is worth getting a JP racquet for are the current 2U racquets....
When I say "what it means" I'm referring to in terms of quality. I'm an Aussie, as if I didn't know where NZ was
if u are into subarus, you know that those freaking japs keep the best design/parts/models for the JDM models... talk about selfishness!
Do they use instruments during the QC process to determine the quality/robustness of the racquets or is it something done manually (visual inspection etc) ? If it is a manual process, wouldn't it take a significant time and add alot of overhead to the entire process of manufacturing and shipping it out ? I am not doubting you, just curious about the details. What you mention does happen in the wafer industry where the lesser quality wafers are used to make CPU that performs at a lower speed. I always had the impression that all the region code have the same quality as it didn't make much sense to me for them to segregate as it would consume too much time if done manually. Maybe I should get a TH coded Z slash to compare with my SP coded Z slash.
You don't know what NZ is ahahah!! j/k =P Quality, I dunno. They should be the same. I've talked to a pro player who is retired and still sponsored by Yonex and she said the racket codes does not matter. She has CPs and IP rackets which I saw for myself.
Really depend which pro player you talked to. Those that i spoke to admits that JPs is better or MAs, IPs,CPs (then). After that they say it is not the racket.. it is the player. . So its really up to us what to choose.
First impressions... I tried the ARC-Z in the morning session today, and the first impression was so-so.. The Sweetspot using bg80@26x28 is not as small as i expected.. I would say it is on par with TC700 or even slightly larger but slightly smaller than AT900P, NS9900, AT700, N90 etc. No real problem and kind of a nice feedback on the smashes. I netplay and flicks where excellent.. with it.. really nice.. But I felt it was lacking severely in control, and blocks, pickups, defense.. it felt way to flexy on defence and stick-smashes and cut/sliced smashes or fast drops felt horrible.. I think the tradeoff with the narrower frame may not be a a sound idea in the first place actually. I mean it is all great if one plays against a lesser opponent where you have all the time in the world and only needs to "put it away".. then the racket excels.. But if you dive to save a shot or goes for a deceptive stick-smash close to the line (bao-style :-D ) then the tradeoff of making the racket narrower and less forgiving AND flexier is a bad thing i think.. especially with the "flexier" shaft makes it very hard to control a precise defence on a good smash. This is just my first impression of the Z.. Maybe it will grow on me (i switched to LN N90 after a while and it felt so much more stable, and stiff and precise) .. I will give it some more playtime at the evening session today, to see if it can grow on me My initial thinking is that I can see why Taufik, LCW etc. may be hesitating to make the switchover (we will see how they do, I suspect there will be quite some preassure and monetary incentive for them to use "the latest").. I think the racket is perfect if they have an "easy" opponent.. but if they play similar level players like the top Chineese, koreans etc. I think the racket may be of more problem than help actually.. Especially for players like LCW who playes a more "control"/dive&defend style of play my 2 cents, Twobeer
just do more play time with it. if you do switch back and forth with ovals to iso and back and again...then, the ARC ZS is just that sweeter to get accustomed with! taufik and lcw are so ingrained with their regular ISOs that a sudden shift would also disrupt their momentum. and the pros too must admit that they too suffer from learning curve deficiency more so than enthusiast who would normally try and test every new rackets out there every so often. as for the coded rackets, the selection process Ants is talking about... mind you guys, BUT wouldn't it bother y'all to realise that "made in japan" inscripted rackets are "initially" cast (of course, the factories are not "let in" of the "processess" WITH the OVERSEERS perched over their shoulders like swiss clockwork!) in china and shipped over to japan for them to quality analyse/quality control, do the paintjob and later on code allocate? the only thing the japanese needs is to protect their new technologies...and from there onwards, it doesn't really matter if they are "cast" anywhere else. the words "made in" can be argued indefinitely with today's technicalities dependent upon geographies.
@twobeer So your preferred weapon of choice is still the TC700 ? Recently, I got the Cab30MS and the Cab35 and when I compare it with the TC700, the head shape is so similar ! The TC700 seems to be more oval than ISO.
teoky, but the ARC ZS is a tad narrower than Mizuno TC700--solid as a brick. imo, it's better if the racket has some "give" or feel to it--like, the ARC ZS. MetalOrange P.S. I like the Cab 35 too (I don't have a Cab 30 muscle to compare) and it handles great...well, I'm use to switching between ovals and ISOs. ...and now the ISOval Mizuno and ARC ZS.
But the TC700 is more of an oval racket, it's similar with the Z in that way... As to the different codes of rackets, there're arguements on either side whether there is a difference or not, I feel my CP MP99 plays better than my friend's CD MP99 but it could be just a personal preference...
The argument you have here has been discussed before. Some of us has visited the factory in Japan and in Taiwan. Yonex has much higher standard than those companies making fake goods and making false claims about Yonex. Yes, Yonex does out source the lowest racquet model to china. Also, Yonex do out source the low end tennis racquet to china and they do have "Made in china" printed on the racquet. Yonex may be greedy, but they are at lease honest.
