On my previous thread, I asked about other brands, now I need more information about these 2 brands From what I heard, Gosen is a pretty good brand who can even compete to famous brands like Yonex,Victor,Li-ning and etc, but no pros has been sponsored by them While unlike Babolat, which from I read at BC,Is also a quite good brand and almost all of their rackets is even-balanced.Plus, they've even got pros to hlp them to spread their name too. So, I need more details about these 2 brands and I hope you can hlp me by answering them
Gosen has a great tradition with rackets but mainly strings. They where proud sposnor of team Malaysia many moons ago, but have more or less been killed by competition, not very big these days.. But they have made some solid stuff, and especially their strings has been and are top notch! Babolat is really a tennis brand which you get the feel that they do badminton more or less becuase it is in the "racket"-market segment.. They have some OK stuff and was very innovative when the first introduced a new mold for the frames with grommetless and new stringpattern, but then they kind of did....nothing. and just repainted and reproduced the same racket over and over again..Kind of what YY has been doing a bit lately introducing the same racket with a new color edition yearly basically Today they have quite high profile sponsorship, but mostly Women.. High profile names like Tine rasmussen, Pi Hongyan etc., has been sponsored by Babolat. So they do solid badmintonstuff, but does not play in the same league as the "dragons".. And Personally I stay away from them as long as their primary R&D really only is Tennis focus. If I had to choose between them as brands/companies, I would Pick Gosen ANY day of the week as my favourite
wow, I hear of the famous 'twobeer' in BC and now I have seen him, VERY INFORMATIVE. Oh, so you mean Babolat just uses the same tech in their badminton rackets and not improved anything...hmm... then I might as well take Gosen. P.S twobeer sir, to you, wat is the top 5 brands you think is the best? For me, 1)Yonex 2)Li-Ning 3)Victor 4)Kason 5) (don't know so asking whether to choose Gosen or Babolat or any other brands)
Geeee, twobeer, when was the last time you touched a Babolat racquet to be that definitive ? Your statements are far to be true, included for Yonex, maybe a bad day....
I kind of dug a whole for my self proclaiming that i like Gosen as a brand more than I like Babolat In general I really hate generalizing on brands, as a brand is really just a name.. some brands make lots of different models some that are great and som that are crap all with the same "brand" name.. It is also a moving target.. Just because one brand was leading development 10 years ago does not make them lead today, or vice versa, a company that had low quality of older models may improve and make new modes with high quality etc. It should really be broken down into the separate models! From a "brand" perspective I prefer companies that put their focus on badminton.. for example releasing tech, and innovations that are not seen on their "tennis" line before baddy, and that hosts many tournaments, sponsor players, focus on more things than just rackets (for example shuttle deals with clubs, baddy shoes, nets, courts, strings, striningmachines etc.etc..) Showing a serious commitment to our sport. But of course the upmost important thing about rackets is how they play... Todays badminton dragons, are the top 3 on your list, I would say.. And I would really inlcude Kason in Li-Ning at it is just another bramd for Li-Ning products these days.
The budget and the R&D Badminton teams Yonex and even at a lesser level Babolat are putting on the table are still the biggest in the Badminton world. I didn't have any issue whatsoever 40 years ago when as an ATP tennis player and R&D engineer I was used as others to develop the usage of all type of metal fibers in racquets; we were beneficing and so Badminton, even nowadays as a lot was developed during those days, the development made by French winter ski brands. What you say about Babolat does apply to Head, and we saw it when a few weeks ago they stopped Badminton development. The success they had with the d30 technology in tennis was applied in Badminton without any respect to the different Badminton specific constraints... which, again was a big mistake. Yonex and Babolat have invested a lot recently in the re-usage of Tungsten in their racquets (Voltric range, the new Satelite Power 6.5), specifically for Badminton racquets; just an example. I am not sponsored nor work for any Badminton company, don't play Yonex and Babolat, but cannot take such statements, sorry.
I use a Babolat X-Feel Blast and Power (refer review in another thread). They're every bit as good as my high end Yonex'es. And they don't cost a fortune either.
It's hard to crown a brand. All brands have awesome rackets in their range, but also a bit crappy rackets. Their is no best brand. All these named brands produced decent rackets.
I don't think you can show us any figures for the badminton specific r&d from any of the competetitors, So I assume your views on the r&d budget are just your perosnal guesses? Or pelase provide fact to prove your point. Also a company like YY or Li-Ning may or may not book alot of "marketing" costs and activities with providing new stuff to sponsored players as r&d etc.. Babolat may include parts of its tennis r&d etc.. So I think a comparison is fruitless. We can really only judge what they come out with as result of their r&d and how much "new" stuff they pack in their models. Use of Tungsten is not NEW it has been used for more than 15 years or so in different models, from different manufacturers..
Concerning Tungsten, I precised its RE-utilization; anyway, you have to be right somewhere, good for you. As far as I am concerned I won't say more, bye.
