What do the 2 letter country code on yonex rackets mean? (JP/SP/TW)

Discussion in 'Badminton Rackets / Equipment' started by kelvin1338, Dec 30, 2012.

  1. demolidor

    demolidor Regular Member

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    McD in Germany and Netherlands is about the same price iirc, Switzerland is more expensive and Indonesia is cheaper :D but also USA is cheaper. KFC also cheaper in Indonesia compared to Netherlands ...
    Starbucks, we could compare the City Mugs: In Netherlands now 10 euro, Germany 8 euro, Switzerland 15 euro, Czech 15-20 euro, USA ~8 euro, Japan (15-)20 euro, Denmark >15 euro, Korea 7 euro. And you can pretty much bet there are no differences in material :D. There used to be two factories but I think they are all made in China now ...
     
    #21 demolidor, Jan 2, 2013
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2013
  2. maxout

    maxout Regular Member

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    IF I may be CYNICAL :rolleyes:, I will say this is part of the "subtle" BRANDING and MARKET POSITIONING strategy cum myth promoted by Yonex and other Japanese makers to promote "MADE IN JAPAN for JAPAN" as "superior" products so that :

    1) Good image for NATION - Japanese will always feel GREAT about getting top-notch 1st grade over rest of the world

    2) Slaughter the domestic Japanese consumers

    3) Slaughter the "dumb enough" foreigners to follow suit

    4) Make more $$$$ out of 2) and 3)

    5) We are PATRIOTS - we made the BEST by Japan, for Japan and Japan makes the BEST goods in the world ...

    Put it this way, it is WIN-WIN all the way for the companies to "ahem" subtly promote JP as "SUPERIOR" code ...

    The ONLY REALLY BIG DIFFERENCE I can see with JP-coded items - they all come in very beautifully done packaging - i.e. I love that Yonex FANCY, CLOTH RACQUET BAG - cost a bomb to buy it separately ... probably, that is THE PRICE DIFFERENCE betwen JP-coded and the others ? :confused:
     
  3. gundamzaku

    gundamzaku Regular Member

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    i could care less if it's distributed in Jap, the only difference in the rackets i'm interested in (besides the aerotus 110) is the handle size, and compare to most asians i have big hands, so US rackets works fine with me. paying 25-50 bux USD more for a smaller handle racket which i have to overgrip twice is not worth my money nor my time. but to own another aerotus i will buy one and shipped from japan, but i think i'm going to japan later on this year...sorry to digress.

    but back on topic, your cynicism is warranted!!
     
  4. demolidor

    demolidor Regular Member

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    Like a big sock would cost more than a regular bag :D? Also made in japan doesn't have as much weight in Europe as it does in Asia and maybe US ... Maybe on a scale of should be reliable vs perhaps made in china either fake or lesser quality but neither premium quality. Only in certain circles for certain products but not as a general perception ... Cloth bag listed at 735 Yen vs 1890 for a regular racket case btw.

    But I forgot to include before also the cost of doing business as a factor in price differences globally, store rent for one.

    As for grip size: they also have G4 in Japan you know ... G3 get it in Europe.
     
  5. demolidor

    demolidor Regular Member

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    Just too late to edit (when I started this reply :D) but should clarify I meant more in terms of Japanese brands vs for example Chinese instead of "made in ...". Most people would probably understand or think if a Japanese brand was made in china it would be for cheaper labour rather than be (seriously) detrimental to the quality. Other than Lenovo and Li-Ning I'm not getting very far on global chinese brands :eek: and they are certainly not viewed as premium brands (well Lenovo anyway, Li-Ning is just an unkown in general. Can't say I've seen many gymnasts in Li-Ning for example and maybe besides the badminton, the basketball stuff might have gotten some credit but I haven't seen anything about it nor looked for it).

    Li-Ning's pricing strategy is what you should look at as an example of pricing strategy to influence perception in recent years as the newcomer.
     
    #25 demolidor, Jan 2, 2013
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2013
  6. Licin

    Licin Regular Member

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    A lot of good insights have been provided at this thread. Well, i have played with same type of racket (eg. 900P, Arc10) in other codes, they are IP & JP. From what i feel, using the same string and tension, rackets do vary among codes. I feel that IP and JP products are more solid than SP, racket characteristic still hold. However, since i do not try many rackets in these codes to be able to convince me for making a statement, hence i am just sharing my experience in here. Nonetheless, i do believe that there are differences among codes. It could be the usage of different material grade, though.
     
  7. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

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    I have racquets of the same model and code. They all have a slight variation in feel. No one racquet feels exactly the same as another.

    Other reasons for variation are possibly:

    Raw material variations
    Manufacturing date - i.e. batch to batch variation and also different time periods of manufacturing i.e. 2012 and 2013 racquets would feel different.
    Storage conditions - humidity, temperature variations

    My opinion is that if you buy a racquet and like it, you better buy more quickly to try to get the same feel. Buy the same model the next year and it will feel different, even if it is the same code.
     
  8. gundamzaku

    gundamzaku Regular Member

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    during the 12' olympic games a lot of US divers uses Li Ning gear, i was surprised they didn't go with speedo?
     
  9. gundamzaku

    gundamzaku Regular Member

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    so maybe it's worth the money to experiment with different code rackets? maybe buy the same racket with different codes and see how they are different?

    i was thinking about picking a mid-grade racket and buy different codes of it but then mid grade rackets don't have variation in distribution codes, only the high end ones do....that's gonna be one expensive experiment.
     
  10. diverdan

    diverdan Regular Member

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    or you could write a free email to Yonex and find out their view?
     
  11. gundamzaku

    gundamzaku Regular Member

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    well having bought more than one copy of a particular racket i still noticed there's a slight difference in feel, i'm sure they all will feel different, besides, i'm leaning toward owning more rackets, this would be a good excuse?
     
  12. maxout

    maxout Regular Member

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    Errr... guys, of course, there will be "slight' differences between ALL racquets and SEASONED OLD HANDS like us will surely notice them ... why ? ... well, if you look at all the specs of the racquets, their dry (no grip and strings) weights are always stated in 5 grammes range within each U-band (Yonex scale) eg 3U = 85-90gm and if I am not not mistaken, each +/- 1 gramme will shift the balance point by corresponding +/- 5mm ? - so not surprising every individual racquet will "feel" slightly different.

    Maybe JP-coded ones get the "kar liew" (more weighty) racquets to give that "heavy-ish" solid feel ? Just shooting in the dark here :p
     
  13. drifit

    drifit newbie

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    feel?
    your feel and my feel is the same? Lin Dan's feel and Chen Jin's feel the same?
    shall i say Lee Chong Wei's feel and my feel is the same?
    feeling is so individual, am i right feeling now?

    again. i posted in this kind of thread before.
    take 1000 rackets of any 5 codes and clash them to each other. let us see the test result to show certain coded racket is more solid than other codes. without test, we all can say whatever we want to. it is feeling.... ;)
     
  14. maxout

    maxout Regular Member

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    Hahaha :D ... WALAU !! :eek: I think ONLY YONEX can afford to do that test !! :D
     
  15. demolidor

    demolidor Regular Member

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    Well Li-Ning is their sponsor after all ;) ... and money counts for more when you hardly need a high-performance brief for diving :D. Seems a reasonably big school sport in the US, or it just makes for good tv(?). Cheapest way to squeeze into the aquatics scene I guess ... or was that why there was more "slippage" than usual? :p

    Also mid-grade/made in taiwan models do have distribution codes as well, just not a JP one. Nanospeed 1000 is probably the cheapest non-basic made in japan model ... If you want to experiment, you could get a JP, SP and a US of the next high-end release [​IMG].

    **********

    Or to start with the community can begin by posting their new racket weights in a new thread, unstrung or strung but unmodified stock grip, if one really wants to go to that lengths [​IMG]. Like I mentioned elsewhere all my 3U are 88-89gr. regardless of code, or at least >87.5 gr. by a good guestimate as some are strung or re-gripped and there are at least 5 different codes in there spanning different models.
     
    #35 demolidor, Jan 4, 2013
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2013
  16. gundamzaku

    gundamzaku Regular Member

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    i didn't see any slippage but i did see them adjusting their suits quite often.

    nano1000, i wonder if that's hard to get around the world, cos i haven't seen it in the US LOL. getting three high end rackets will render me almost 600 USD, i might have to reconsider.

    the only way to test this is for me to own these rackets so that we are using the same wrist (mine) while playing to keep it consistent, and i don't like using other people's rackets, and i don't lend mine out.
     
  17. nis270r

    nis270r Regular Member

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    i believe i can attest to that statement on the feel of certain high end YY strings, i personally tried out CH and JP made NBG98, JP made ones does have a more crisp and better feel to it, and the hitting sound is also slightly different, the CH one my friend bought from China, it feels more stiff and sort of "dead", it smashes ok but does not have the same feel as the JP made one. I strung my racket at 26 lbs.
     
  18. yan.v

    yan.v Regular Member

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    I beg to differ.

    Strings with different codes play the same and last as long. You might have encountered fake CH/SP strings.

    I've compared SP, CD and JP strings strung on the same tension and same racket and they all had the same frequency and played exactly the same.
     
  19. uwewong

    uwewong Regular Member

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    Old thread but oh well...I just came back to Hong Kong from Japan with arc11 and zf2 both JP code...blind tested them with my arc11 SP & GR and zf2 SP & GR...I got to say that the difference is clear. I prefer GR as the stiffness feels just right for both models. Paint job is so slightly sharper and the colour is also brighter on JP and GR... But it's really the kickback from the racket that makes the difference. It's stiff but it just feels like the GR one kicks better for my style of play. Easier to generate power when playing. But yeah it's noticeable. I am selling my SPs...

    Another thing is that when I am getting a few more rackets from GR or JP, I would feel more safe that I am getting the same quality in weight and balance.

    There is a difference if you can feel it haha!!
     
  20. Nicholas Tam

    Nicholas Tam Regular Member

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    I used to own 2 JP coded rackets, the NS9000S and AS10... they were worth it while they lasted. Rose Sports in Hong in particular likes to market GR coded rackets as being larger gripped and stiffer to suit the beefier Westerners while we frail Asians have our SP/HK and various SEA coded rackets. JP coded are an exception as they do usually seem to have a better overall feel as a result of supposedly higher QC... but these days the premium of the JP over the SP coded variants is somewhere around 40% more and I don't find it worth the extra. I could vouch that the GR and JP coded rackets do play better despite the possibility of batch manufacturing and material inconsistency; the general consensus is that despite Yonex refusing to acknowledge that there are difference between the JP and the rest of the world versions, many players who have owned the JP coded ones do claim to feel a difference. Maybe the rackets are tested and binned accordingly, where the top of the crop of the batch is JP coded, the stiffer ones as GR coded and the rest as SP etc...

    If you want to buy a great racket that doesn't carry the tag of "feeling cheap", you may as well get a Li Ning. Made in China, distributed from China. Their early rackets are terrible to work with, but their more recent aero frame designs are truly phenomenal.
     

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