They were laser sketched I believe, can't remember exactly, but I think it said 中国羽球 and styled like one of those old time official stamps. Really wish I took a picture now.
I don't see the point to argue with you regarding your experience. You have certainly mistaken me and my intention for the other guy. From my experience at least, I dare to say that Li-Ning strings are not bad and definitely not inferior to Yonex strings themselves. What I also realise is that Li-Ning strings have their own colour, sound and coating properties that I can distinguish from Yonex strings. From the photos that I have seen of racquets used by the Chinese team at least since early 2011, most of them are telling me that Li-Ning strings appear different to Yonex strings to me. I doubt you will care about what I notice anyway so let's just put that aside. As what I have said, I do not even insist that no one from the Chinese team could have had one or two racquets strung with Yonex strings seeing that they have been used to it so I have no idea what you mean by me getting up your tail. Please learn to tell the difference between my logical arguments from the other guy's die-hard fanboyish antics Perhaps one day a photo will surface, but for now I dare to say that I have seen a photo of one of Fu Haifeng's racquet strung with a Yonex Titanium string (not sure which one) which is somewhere in my storage right now..
That is some serious badminton super powers to distinguish Li-Ning strings from Yonex Strings from sound, never mind getting that from watching a badminton video to tell what strings they're using. Sure you can tell the difference looking close up, but I just find it interesting how -I- need to show proof of what I'm saying, yet the other forumers can state "they only exclusively use Li-Ning strings" without any logical statement. Of course the fact that they're Li-Ning sponsored can't be discounted, but that's just an assumption, and as we all know from grade school teachers assumptions just makes an ass out of u and me. Disclaimer: perhaps I have said china team uses yonex strings in an all inclusive way, but i said it out of personal experience and I'm still convinced some of the players use yonex; not excluding the fact that they have sponsorships, increasing the likelihood of using Li-Ning strings also.
Recognise this racquet? Let's pay attention to the left bottom conner, the third main string from the left where you can see the name label of the string. As a reputed stringer yourself, does any of the Yonex strings' name label fade off in such way even when pulled at high tension? From my stringing experience with Yonex strings (let's stick to yellow coloured strings here), I certainly have not met such a case with the name label. FYI, this is something which I have always encountered with the Li-Ning NS-30. The string could not have been a fake Yonex string which the name label has the tendency to fade away even by finger nail-scratching it. However that happens to genuine Li-Ning NS-30. Compare it to this picture of a BG80: And FYI, from my experience stringing and using Li-Ning NS-30 at 32-33lbs ECP, I can tell that some shots such as slices and smashes have this distinctive explosive sound, which is what I also tend to hear from the videos of Chinese players. If you deny what I experienced then I can also deny that the metallic sound of BG80 that most stringers and players can hear as falsehood. I know for one that my hearing is in tune to those frequencies. Everyone has been able to hear the metallic ping of Peter Gade's BG80 strung at 33-34lbs from the higher quality videos just as I am able to hear the explosiveness of Li-Ning strings from the same quality videos. I have strung BG65, BG80 and other Yonex strings at similar tensions and none of them sound as such to me. And also from what I can tell from the red stencil in the photo, it simply does not want to stay, unlike the countless Yonex string beds that I have stenciled before, using Yonex, Pacific and Technifibre stencil inks. This is what I meant when I mentioned that Li-Ning strings have a different coating. I have stenciled Yonex and Li-Ning strings before and the one pictured is similar to my findings with Li-Ning strings. Last but not least, I can accept that you can deny all my logical arguments since you are biased anyway. Just to let you know I am not biased because of assumption. I am basing my arguments from personal experience with Li-Ning strings.
That's what I've been asking for in terms of a discussion, great respect to your knowledge about strings. I'm not denying your "logical arguments", just looking at previous posts, they didn't provide evidence, rather than a "because I said so" approach. Now that post is what I mean by giving me some solid reason not to believe otherwise. Don't take what I said previously as a personal attack of your experiences, but I just haven't heard of anyone looking (or hearing) strings at such length and detail. Furthermore, I did indeed take personal offence to people simply stating the Chinese team only uses Li-Ning strings when I personally took packs of Yonex strings from one of their coaches.
*My hat's off to you* Thank you for the kind words. But I must admit that I have OCD when it comes to strings Apologies for sounding as I did to you in the previous posts..I did not have access to my "research database" at work
A blurry screenshot in which the racket itself is out of focus at said point is not the best "evidence" imo
That or BG65 JP doesn't come in yellow and he (therefore) used to use white when with Yonex (don't look it up, wasn't a question ). Also agree the Yonex fluro yellow is quite distinctive as mentioned here or another thread ... But I did bump into a pic with symbols on the cone the other day on the badmintoncn forum on a "CP" N-something racket. Ah here it is: N80
At singapore open 2013, after losing to the indo pair in the semis ,cai yun threw his racket into the crowd. i was near the guy who caught it, and he let me observe it for a while. On cai yun's kason racket, the string is yonex nbg98 strung at around 26lbs. (you dont have to believe me, but i know what i heard after bouncing his strings against my palm) he also uses white yonex ex102 supergrap. i didn't take pictures, sorry. this shows that the china players do not necessary have to use strings from their main sponsor.
Cai Yun used to use NBG95 at 32-34lbs previously. Switching to NBG98 at 26lbs is pretty odd, although 26lbs NBG98 does sound like 30lbs+ NBG95. You might have misread NBG95 as NBG98. Just saying. Oh and Lin Dan uses yellow BG80 on his N90 occasionally. Will upload some pictures later.
For me NBG 98 plays best at the tension range 26-27 lbs as well (perfect synergy for hard and laser accurate smashes) , Cai Yun knows what is good. But they lost at SIN Open, hope it was not the string.
Li ning NS95 string for training. LD said that himself on one occasion. His coach said it was a specially made model though.