Help with racket choice, string and string tension! Please!! :L

[harrymcd]

Hi guys sorry if this has been covered before but im kinda new to all this :L

Ive been looking for a racket for a while and ive got an idea of what i want but im not sure what strings to get or what tension to have the strings at.

i mostly play doubles, and usually play quite attacking, smashing frequently but i also like to play with lots of control around the net.

after looking at reviews and in various badminton shops, i thought that the carlton air rage tour might suit me quite well, i dont know if you have any other ideas, im not looking to spend anymore than about £85 though.

also ive seen that the nbg98 is quite popular but as i dont play that often, or at a hugely high standard i dont want to be restringing very often, but i still dont want to lose too much performance.

any ideas would be greatly appreciated thanks guys :L

[Yoppy]

Hei harrymcd,

welcome to BC, hope you will enjoy and visit here often.

Let me get straight down to the point. As you know, each racket and string (type or tension) have different feel (if you wish). In choosing a racket, IMO there are 4 categories to consider:
1. Stiffness (shaft and frame)
2. BP (balance point): Head heavy, balance or head light
3. Overall weight and grip size
4. Design and technology

Personally Im a big fan of NS9900, its an awesome racket for attacking doubles. Its a head light (towards balance) extra stiff racket. With NS9900, you will end up with a super fast and powerful racket. Also own a Carlton VTT (the silver one), its also an awesome racket although not as stiff as i like them to be. There are many discussions here on BC about racket stiffness and BP, i urge you read them as i found them quite fasinating and provide me with a lot of new information. Forget about what the shop says (as they just want to clear up their stock lol) unless they are your mate.

As for the string question, IMO it should be treaded separately.

1. String tickness
2. Material
3. Tension

I personally use only a few type of string and stick with them regardless what racket i use. The same case with the tension, i play around 28lbs (although recently just been trying to go 30lbs) again regardless what racket i use. The reason for this is that IMO changing string and string tension will be so much harder (to adjust) than changing racket. Lets say you use to play with 30lbs, you will be frustrated playing with 22lbs regardless how good you are or the racket is. So my suggestion is to find your tension range first and then decide what racket to go with it. I also found that each stringer may have different machine and meter, hence sticking with one good stringer (that you like) is always better, at least you know what to expect.

Personally i like the string tickness around 0.67 - 0.7, it will give you a nice control compare to 0.62 - 0.66 strings. I found it hard to play with a thiner string, I dont know why (but i would like to give it another go next time). That said, Im not too fussy about what type, and honestly I have not tried too many of them. My favourite so far will be N95, BG65, BG65ti, BG70pro and BG80.

Cheers

[Avenger]

you can check:
http://www.jpbadminton.com/?p=244
http://www.prospeed.com.my/choosing_racquets.html

those two explaining about racket, balance point, and the weight

for string, (I read it somewhere in BC)
beginner: 20 lbs
intermediate: 22-25 lbs
advance: 25+ lbs

since you like attacking, head heavy and stiff racket maybe suitable for you

how about panda power trinity pro?
it is stiff, and head heavy
it is not come out yet, but you can pre-order it (around £83)
http://www.badmintoncentral.com/foru...nsion!/page216