Shuttlecombo shuttles

shuttlecombo.com recently launched their own brand of shuttles, champion and tournament editions for a very respectable price.

I have just received 10 tubes of the champion edition and will be writing a brief review on their playability.

I inspected a tube and have noticed a few details that could affect the performance.

1. the feathers on some of the shuttles were not perfectly aligned as some of the Chao Pai or Aeroplane shuttles I'm used to, as well as some imperfections with the individual feathers
2. bits and pieces of glue were stuck to some of the feathers. While they were removable, I don't want to be wasting time picking them off.
3. Lastly, the shuttles do feel light and not as heavy as other brands. (they are 77speed)

That being said, I will be testing them on Thursday, one tube steamed, one unsteamed to see how well they play.

 

Alright, so the follow up to testing a steamed tube:

Overall, the shuttles would last approximately 1/2 to 3/4 of a single game with fast and powerful hitters. Playing with players that go for placement rather than power, on average the shuttles would last 3/4 of a game before the shuttle died out.

The first things that I noticed once we started to warm-up and play was that as the shuttles were lighter, they were easier to hit and required less effort to clear backcourt-to-backcourt. However, I found that the ability to play drop shots was a bit harder as I couldn't feel the shuttle on the racquet as much.
The actual shuttles themselves held up rather nicely with only about 2 out of the 12 breaking somewhere, however, the biggest thing was the fraying of the feathers was rather quick and one had to straighten them out after about 1/4 of the game.

Some feedback from different players:
From an attacking minded player "initially they felt good, but once they speed started going, it was tough to judge the distance so you weren't always sure whether it would land out"
From a slower player "I like that it doesn't require much effort to hit unlike the Chao Pai and Aeroplane brand"

We played doubles, in Canada where the gym temp was approx 19C
I would say that these feathers are not meant for high-level competition and would be best suited for practice, or potentially some low- to mid-level club play.

 

The quality is definitely not near either of the two...the head is made of cork as most other shuttles are, but the feathers aren't the best quality.

They are OK shuttles for the price and as I said, great for practice or some lower level club players who just want to hit around