I noticed some friends said the current quality for shuttles are worse than before. It is indeed the case. Few years ago in China, all geese and ducks were feed by natural food， and maybe it would take 4-6 month for a gosling to grow up.( 4-6 month is my assumption). But now, some business man want to get more profit, they feed the geese and ducks by forage which contain lots of hormone, so it reduces the growth circle, maybe only need 1-2months. So the quality of feather getting worse, the durability is declining. All of the manufacturers in China meet this problem, of course the factories can not raise the geese and ducks by themselves.
In the future, the shuttlecocks will get more n more expensive, because the game gets more popular n higher consumption than production. Is there any companies that are concentrating on trying to 'perfect' plastic shuttles? Any insights into the shuttlecock industry?
as long as there is a demand, there will be a supply. and there is a limit to how low the quality can be... there will always be high grade shuttles and if we look hard enough, at a decent price.
I started using Aeroplane shuttlecocks in Singapore in 1978 and they were priced around SGD $18 (I don't know how much were the US-SGD conversion rate was). They were the best available and now how much for Yonex Aero Sensa is over SGD $30. In another 20 years time it will probably be $40-50 (high thirties in USD)
haha, a tube of aerosensa 50 cost about $40+ in singapore, this is way too expensive already... but i dont know much about the quality of feathers thou...
quality has dropped a lot in recent years. price has gone up as well. well, badminton is becoming an expensive hobby.
Whilst i agree that the prices continue to escalate, I can honestly say that I have not noticed any drop in quality from my preferred shuttle - Aerosensa 40. I know I pay for a more expensive shuttle, however, I find that they last longer and therefore still represent excellent value for money. Paul www.badminton-coach.co.uk
Well the last few sessions I have played with Yonex Areosensa 30 there has been a mini broken shuttle mountain at the end of it.These shuttles are very brittle. I have used New Magnum as well and they last a lot longer before breaking plus they are cheaper.
I have played matches against a lot of different clubs that use different brands this season and the Yonex shuttles were the worst of the lot. I have also noticed a lot of lesser known brands being used by clubs. One reason is cost. If you are going through 2 shuttles a game it can get expensive!
