Is there anyone who know a good stringer in Hong Kong? I'm playing with ISO800 stringed with BG85 at 25lbs. I try a few stringers and it seems that they can't string it properly at 25lbs. From the feel, they either stringed it at a lower tenson to avoid damage to the racquet or mess it around. In Beijing, the stringer at the stadium have no problem whatsoever!
Luxis. However, you may need to check that when you both say 25 lbs, you are talking about the same thing. Otherwise, you can ask him to adjust the string tension to fill the difference. I've racquets strung from 24 lbs to ~30 lbs there and I'm happy with their work everytime.
Ricky Do you feel much difference with the tension at 25lbs compared to 28lbs? And do you know of any other shops in Tokyo to get badminton stuff?
The only racquet I've with above 25lbs tension is my MMP300. I tried higher tension because I had tried Ng's MMP300 which is strung with BG80 at 30 lbs, and I found it very good ! So I then strung my MMP300 with BG85 at 28 lbs (Ng's suggestion). Honest speaking, I found that my smash is harder and more consistent in recent months, but I'm not sure whether it is mainly due to the MMP300 or higher string tension (may be due to training as well !). I do think the higher string tension has some contribution on the improvement. There are two more things I've experienced as well : (1) at the day when my forearm/wrist is tired, I found that it is difficult to hit with the higher tension MMP300, (2) even after a lot of play, the string tension of the racquet is still high enough (but surprisingly the string doesn't break faster) - because of this reason, I start to string my other racquets with tension above 25 lbs. If you use BG85, I think it is worth to try higher tension - it doesn't seem higher tension will make the racquet feels like a rock (on the other hand, I've some reservation to try higher tension for Ti strings). For badminton shops in Japan, please try those listed in www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zt8s-oon/bdm/bad-shop.htm Another shop I know is www.shuttle-house.com - this is really a badminton pro shop, but they are in Osaka.
Sorry, I couldn't get those addresses to work. I am sure your regular playing and training is a major contribution to the better smash. I tried 28lbs on my cab 22. can't get a good feel for the shuttle but power shots are OK. The soft pushes from midcourt/backcourt are harder to control.
Cheung, you should try go to Osaka and go to Badminton House, the shop looks really pro! From Tokyo, the Shinkansen is really expensive, but you can take a overnight bus which cost a lot less... i was in Japan around 3 years ago and i didn't visit any badminton shops, that was one of the dumbest thing i did.. kwun