*New! Adidas Badminton

[kwun]

Adidas strings.

adipower pro - 0.66mm



power hybrid - 0.72mm main / 0.69mm cross



power balance 69 - 0.69mm

[yan.v]

Hmm interesting.

They're trying to bring hybrid stringing to badminton! Haven't seen any cases where this made a good difference though.

But .72 gauge! Damn!

[gundamzaku]

Look in the skies for the bat sign.

will do, thx for the invite, exciting......

[gundamzaku]

will do, thx for the invite, exciting......

yan, i will look for the bat sign

kwun, thx for the invite

[kwun]

some words about the strings.

as you probably guessed, strings are hard to make. it takes many years of experience, technology and machinery to make strings. afterall, we are dealing with hundreds if not thousands of tiny fiber encased in something as thin as 0.62mm in diameter.

aside from a handful, most brands (even large ones) get the help of a OEM to make strings for them. we know that (some) Li-Ning strings are made by Ashaway, some Victor strings are made by Gosen, and we do know that, with their many years of expertise, Yonex do manufacture their own strings (at least most of them).

from what we can see being offered by Adidas, it is not possible for them to come up with their own factory, so they must be OEM'ing this to their own design and specifications. but there is always some DNA of the original OEM shown in various aspects. be it the location of manufacturing, the packaging, the technology, or just simply the product lines. can you tell from the above who is manufacturing the strings for Adidas?

there can only be a couple of possibilities.

[kwun]

yan, i will look for the bat sign

kwun, thx for the invite

well, there can only possibly be one person holding an Adidas racket!

i will be there after 3.30pm. gotta deal with the kids before hand.

you play in Bintang Milpitas? what day? i might have seen you before then.

[demolidor]

Hmm interesting.

They're trying to bring hybrid stringing to badminton! Haven't seen any cases where this made a good difference though.

But .72 gauge! Damn!

Yonex unstrung thickness is much more than advertised, so perhaps these are advertised at the unstrung thickness? Iirc BG80 was actually 0.72mm unstrung Then again that would be going against the grain (since the Zymax are now also measured at a strung tension), and in a hybrid combo it might make some sense to have something that thick ...

[yan.v]

Yonex unstrung thickness is much more than advertised, so perhaps these are advertised at the unstrung thickness? Iirc BG80 was actually 0.72mm unstrung

That would make their .66 one pretty damn thin! :O

[demolidor]

That would make their .66 one pretty damn thin! :O

Exactly what I was thinking so made a slight edit . But the difference in strung and actual thickness is probably less, the thinner the string ... Let me see if I can dig up the thread around here ... BG65 was like 0.75 unstrung

Here it is: http://www.badmintoncentral.com/foru...36#post1364536
Zymax67 apparently almost 0.74 unstrung (see last post)

[kwun]

i have my digital calipers ready.

[kwun]

Kwun, what's the Yonex equivalent to the adipower pro? Btw, I'm totally loving the design of that racquet.

purely from the weight and balance point alone, it is similar to an ARC10 or ARC-Z.

and that's kinda what it feels like. not too head heavy, but weighty enough to feel solid and swingable at the same time.

[kwun]

is it full frame woven on the adipower pro racket?

not sure. but since it doesn't say so, it probably means no.

[kwun]

Is the racket's stiff?
I hope they're releasing the same spec but medium flex. Mortals cannot handle the stiffness

there are 4 top models for adipower, models which they classified for "advanced pro":

adipower force
adipower duoforce
adipower pro
adipower tour

force, duoforce, pro are listed as stiff.

tour is listed at medium with a weight of 86g and bp of 290mm.

i only have the adipower pro on hand. it'd be interesting to test the rest as well to see how they all compare.

[CantSmashThis]

Frankly I don't really care about there equipment but more interested to see how they will commercialize and perhaps help professionalize badminton a bit further ...

That's what I am most interested as well. I don't play much anymore to be really buying any Adidas equipment. I hope they will help the sport grow a lot.

On a side note off topic: That leads to a recent article from BWF talking about recent gains in commercialization of the sport. http://bwfbadminton.org/news_item.aspx?id=70576 So hopefully with Adidas as a sponsor, that will bring more attention to the sport and we will be more recognized globally.

[gundamzaku]

well, there can only possibly be one person holding an Adidas racket!

i will be there after 3.30pm. gotta deal with the kids before hand.

you play in Bintang Milpitas? what day? i might have seen you before then.

i usually play wednesdays and thursdays nights and saturday mornings. i'll be there after 3:30pm, and i'll look around for you, thx again.

[demolidor]

So, au contraire some of the bc expectations (of complete French NT sponsorship), French #1 player Brice Leverdez has switched from Babolat to Wilson. Winning the recent French Nationals with the Recon BLX (possibly 2013 edition) ...

[gundamzaku]

i am hoping that with such a big company getting into badminton the rest of the world will see badminton as more than a backyard sport