I picked up badminton in India and played their for about 2 yrs before shifting to Spore. I have played with only top brand racquests till now. Mostly Yonex Ashaway and Wilson. Within these I have picked the mid price range of each of these. Yesterday i went to get my Yonex MP strung at Toa Payoh Safra and was waiting while the stringing was being done. The gentleman behind the counter was commenting on a lot of things about racquets and strings. Some of them were intresting and I wanted to know if they are right. 1. Yonex mid priced racquets are nothing compared to some of the lesser known brands. (I bought a Liba Black Arrow yesterday for 85 S $ with strings and grip!!) 2. String tension depends on individual players. High strung racquest need much stronger hitters. High tension provides accuracy 3. Expensive branded racquets have a short life 4. Some local and lesser known brands can take much higher tension that branded mid price racquests
1. It depends on your personal preference and style. But buying Yonex rackets will buy you quality and reputation for the least, although they are generally overpriced. 2. Agree 3. Not really, vary between materials used. 4. He probably means taking higher tension while still covering under warranty. Yonex rackets can string up to 30lbs too no problem. In the other hand, I have switched out from Yonex for almost 6 months now. I didn’t find the 4% of power loss from switching away from the Armortec rackets, still playing like my old fashion way and improving over time. And if you are able find a good lesser known brand racket then why not and save yourself some money???
Maybe 20 years ago, lesser known brands couldn't compete with Yonex at all in terms of quality and technology, but the last 5 years or so, the other brands seem to be catching up fast. Yonex still means quality, but for the same price, you might prefer to get a top of the range non-Yonex brand rather than a Yonex mid-range. I've heard a lot of good comments about Sotx, Winex, Inflight, Kason, etc. (I know some of these companies are quite big actually, but just not as big as Yonex). What's great about badminton rackets these days is the amazing range of different flexes, balance points, offensive/defensive styles you can get. You can find a racket to suit any style of play. I think that's more important than the brand now. I've just switched from MP99s to an ASTEC racket, a clone of a Ti-10, and it's great. Plays fantastic and also really simple to restring (has wider grommets on the corners which take 2 strings). Will buy some more definitely if I can find any here in Europe.
1. dont know, never played yonex 2. the stronger the tension, the better your techinque has to be, because of the better accuracy 3. not really, i'm playin the victor 2000 fi since 2 years, never had a problem. 4. the earlier days i played carlton powerpoint rackets, the tommies ones, and they werent bad
Depend on your view (comparison) point. A) price vs price 1) Often time, YY mid price racquet cost the same as the high end of Wilson, Carlton or Pointfore. 2) Agree. One additional point. You MIGHT be able to get away with stiff racquet with lower tension. Not going to work for everyone. 3)As long as you don't miss hit too much and do not abuse the racquet, Yonex NS7K can last as long as any racquet. 4) Because less know brands cost a lot less, people are welling to take the risk to experiment with higher tension. If pro use YY with 30+ lb tension, it can take it. B) level vs level 1) If you compare YY mid level price vs less brand mid level price racquet, I will take YY any day because why do you buy a clone when you can get the real one. 2) Usually mid level YY racquet has softer shaft and more forgiving. You can string it @ higher tension for a better accuracy and not missing too much power. 3) See above. 4) Same as above with 1 additional point. If you compare mid price level YY vs mid price level no name brand, I think YY will have better QC than other. These are just my views. Please take it as a grain of salt, no more.
Someone in the forums posted that lower-priced Yonex racquets (under $100) are generally not a good value, but higher-priced models generally are. From my experience, I agree, although I have not tested a lot of Yonex racquets. I have found that the most expensive Yonex I've played with, the Carbonex 20 Muscle, is vastly superior to the under-$100 models I've used. The Carbonex 20 doesn't prove a linear quality improvement as price increases, though. It's possible that a person may play better with a lower-priced racquet like the Carbonex 20 than with a much more expensive racquet from Yonex with different characteristics, like the Nanospeed 7000.
One thing I really notice in our area is that with a lot of brands to choose from, Yonex comes as the first object of desire but often times forgotten for a high-end non-yonex brand because it cost no more than half as much. Performance and quality is not compremised though, they perform quite well despite being "cheap" and lesser known.
