Yonex AS10, AS20, AS30 = no good. Fortunately, AS40 and AS50 = very good to excellent. For the price of AS10-20, get the RSL Tourney Classic. You will not regret it.
Not harsh Neil, just my experience. I recently picked up 3 tubes of AS-30 from a local tournament. All 36 birds were sub par from what I expected. I expected the AS-30 to be a step down from the AS-40 (which is excellent) but it was about 3 steps down. The flight was average, durability slightly better than average. The AS-30 ($23/tube) was inferior to: Hi Qua Blue ($14/tube) RSL Ace ($14/tube) Maybe the AS-30s in the past were good but currently, I'm not impressed.
I purchase RSL shuttles from Andy Tran: andytran1011@yahoo.com. He's the manager of San Gabriel Valley Badminton Club. http://www.badrus.com/flashless/shuttles.php?manufacturer=RSL
Thanks for the info! I will check it out. BTW, What speed shuttles do you guys play down there in SoCal? 4.9/76 or 5.0/77? Does it vary from summer to winter? Thx.
This depends on the manufacturer. For instance: Hi Qua Purple/Blue: 50 Yonex 50 (but sometimes too fast) Victor: 50 DHS 201: 49 (a bit slow, need 49.5, 50 too fast) King 707: 78 RSL: 77 Trump: 77 But for RSL, 77 is general right.
Thanks! I am a little surprised to see many 50/77/78 speeds. I was expecting you guys to be playing with one speed slower than us in general. My experience also says it varies from brand to brand. Is your gym's temperature controlled?
Have you played with Tai Lai 001 at speed 50? Speed 49 feels slightly slow in Bay Area, CA. How does Tai Lai 001 compare with Victor Champion #1?
Nope, haven't tried the better Tai Lai shuttles. Victor Champion # 1 quality is a bit all over the place recently. The ones from Taiwan are excellent. The U.S. version is average to very good. A few of the average ones are probably a bad batch or dried out.
We use AS50s in our club. When we tried the AS30 we found they were good, but didn't last as long as the AS50. If you want a cheap shuttle try the Yehlex Tournament.
i haven't tried the Victor but i have tried the Tai Lai green 49, i can get them for just over 2 bucks american a tube here in china. they are very good for the price. good durability, flight has been good, speed not bad.
Yonex are the official supplier of shuttles to all Badminton Australia tournaments and as such have no choice but to use them. My experience with them so far is: June Bevan U17: AS-10 Ede Clendinnen: AS-30 (Which I was quite surprised at, I am not sure if BA or Badminton NSW made the choice of what to use....but....) The AS-10s were absolutely terrible. Too slow, too fragile and required the shuttle director to open each and every tube to humidify them before use. They sucked less then, but he put in the miles, that fellow. They perform better in our humid environment than in Perth, but even a Au$18 tube of Xin Tournaments are better than AS-10s. The AS-30s were OK but for a cheaper price our local club buys Snow Peak shuttles that to most of us find similar in quality to AS-40/50, some even prefer them over the Yonex brand. The flight is outstanding, they stabilise very quickly, spin very fast, and feel nice and solid to hit. They are excellent shuttles for spin shots. Due to bird flu however, their durability and speed has varied (although they are starting to go back to normal). The feathers have a consistently good edge and if they fray they can be stroked back without much trouble. As a sidenote, I tried Hi-Qua blues but found that each one tended to lose a lot more speed than the Snow Peaks over a few rallies but wouldn't break as often, but the Snow Peak shuttles would simply have to break before a major change in flight characteristics would occur. This is the better situation in my book. The Hi-Qua seemed on par or slightly superior to the AS-30 to me.
If you plan on getting AS-10 or AS-20, for the same price, you can find RSL Silver Feather Shuttlecocks / Tourney No.2 or even RSL Tourney No.1 I got the RSL Tourney No.1 For 25$ (for 1 tube lol) and the RSL Tourney No.2 For 22$ And in my friend's badminton club, its 22$ for AS-20 I'd say RSL Tourney No.1 and No.2 are 2 and 1 step ahead of AS-20
Are those in canadian dollars?? Btw just asking--how do the RSL No.1 compare to the tourny classic?? Thanks--I might on buying some RSL ones. I heard good things about them.
I think it depends on the batch and "luck of the draw". In general, from my experience, AS-10, AS-20 and AS-30 are not that good. Especially for the money. However, fortunately, the AS-40 and 50 are always good.
I now get my RSL shuttles from Don Van/Coach. He has the Asian version of the RSL Tourney # 1 ($14/tube) and Tourney # 4 ($10/tube). The Asian version is supposedly a bit more durable. I can confirm that the Tourney # 4 is pretty darn good. In fact, good enough for me to use in normal and tournament play! I feel the Asian T4 is the best bang-for-the-buck shuttle you can buy. $10/tube for real goose is a steal these days. For more info, you can contact Don at: badmintonconnection@gmail.com. Hope this helps.