Victor Carbonsonic - Synthetic Feathers by Victor

Discussion in 'Shuttlecock' started by pcll99, Mar 28, 2016.

  1. mikomi

    mikomi Regular Member

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    Mostly marketing speech. "Ordering new stuff! Behold, new stuff!" But the important bit was about the JS12 being the new Korea National Team racket.
     
  2. DuckFeet

    DuckFeet Regular Member

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    Not until LYD switches...
     
  3. mikomi

    mikomi Regular Member

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    Jetspeed S 12 - Korea National Team's Unofficial racket of choice*

    *Until Lee Yong Dae breaks all his BS12 rackets aka Someone storms into his personal vault of BS12s and torches the place down
     
  4. Mark A

    Mark A Regular Member

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    There's one here already - you just didn't read it:D.
     
  5. DuckFeet

    DuckFeet Regular Member

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    I meant the translated article. Didn't fancy quoting the whole thing.

    I reckon I'm going to order some of these as soon as they're available.
     
  6. Mark A

    Mark A Regular Member

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    Depends on the price - if they cost twice as much as a Mavis but last twice as long, we'd probably go for them ourselves.
     
  7. visor

    visor Regular Member

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    For me, it would depend more on the feel and flight.
     
  8. Ch1k0

    Ch1k0 Regular Member

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    I'm with visor on this. If it flies and feels close enough to the real deal. I'd promote these for free..
     
  9. s_mair

    s_mair Regular Member

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    +1

    When they feel and fly nicely, I wouldn't care if they were expensive in the beginning. Prices will only go down as soon as they can be produced in higher numbers. So the more customers like us buy them in the beginning, the sooner the price will come down.
     
  10. Nightbird

    Nightbird Regular Member

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    They shouldn't be more than the real feather birds in terms of cost. It really is not a groundbreaking concept. It would impact the industry in a big way though if that bird sounds and flies like it does in the promo video ! Almost sounds like the conspiracy theories like in the case of electric and hydrogen cars :)
     
  11. R20190

    R20190 Regular Member

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    I admire the initiative from victor here, its a lot more than other big manufacturers have done. I personally think that no matter how close they can get it to real feathers it will only remain in the recreational/club domain. I cannot see professionals or national tournaments taking on artificial feather shuttles when the relative cost of genuine feathers are not extortionate in the whole scheme of things. Also, why would pros go for an imitator and risk inadvertently developing a different feel/technique when you can have the real thing?

    But at club and recreational level, this is something that I think could really catch on. There are still a lot of clubs using plastic shuttles for the sole reason of cost . If victor can bring the costs down close to that of plastic shuttles, this could threaten the plastic shuttle market enough to make manufacturers like yonex wake up and take note and create a healthy competition that would hopefully benefit us consumers eventually! :)
     
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  12. nemrod

    nemrod Regular Member

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    Well, to be fair Mizuno did do this many many years ago, and even filed a patent as I recall. At that time carbon fiber wasn't as viable I guess, so I think the feather stems were just plastic or something though.

    I really hope they will take off, and that we'll eventually see feather shuttles replaced even in tournaments. It all depends on how good they are, though, and that the BWF is willing to develop new standards for shuttles based on flight and not materials. Unlikely in the foreseeable future, perhaps, but I have my fingers crossed.
     
  13. s_mair

    s_mair Regular Member

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    To be honest I wouldn't give a damn thing if they will be used in pro tournaments or not. It's not that we keep using feather shuttles only because they are used by the elite of our sport, but simply beause flight, feeling and sound of old-school plastic shuttles are eons away from decent feather shuttles.

    However I am with you with practically everything else from your post. The Carbosonics or spin-offs from other companies will hardly be able to replace feather shuttles completely in the foreseeable future. What I am pretty sure of is that they have the potential to kill the market for traditional plastic shuttles - and if they perform just remotely on the level I am hoping for, this could happen in a rather short period of time. What happens then is that several major companies will fight for this market with similar concepts and trying to surpass their competitors with improvements which will end up with even better shuttles and/or even lower costs. The cycle will be completed with us consumers having most benefit. :D

    So I really hope that the Carbosonics are good enough to become the inital spark for the developement of plastic shuttles Gen. 2.
     
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  14. mikomi

    mikomi Regular Member

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    @s_mair
    Exactly. As I've stated before, anything that helps lower overall costs for badminton is only going to benefit the sport. And hopefully like you said, it's better for us because we spend most of our money on shuttles, not the rackets or strings.
     
  15. necrohiero

    necrohiero Regular Member

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    Well. For me it's the same really like what's happening in football (soccer). There are some grades of replicas and ball (and shoes) in football.

    There are those professional grade that is used in world cups and expensive leagues, cheap balls that are used only to play, and those middle grade ball. The replicas of original ball that at least feel and could be kicked the same with the feeling of a pro grade ball. But cost usually a half or even third the price of the original (adidas teamgeist replicas and the original bundesliga ball for example). What badminton is missing is these middle grade thing. There are no ball that cheap enough, last long enough and fly almost like the professional grade ball for middle leagues, hobby, and those weekend competitions. are all either too cheap and too bad of a quality, ok enough in price but doesn't fly as good, or having a very good quality and provide the longevity that everyone can afford.


    What i see in badminton, if someone wants to get serious in the sport, they ended up to spend a lot of money to buy their own shuttles. and even if they want to have a tournament, they end up to have to bring their own (which hinder people to compete more regularly). I have this experience too. lucky for me that my school would pitch in a bit for feather shuttles.. But anyone else? And at least clubs could save more money to afford other things...
     
  16. ucantseeme

    ucantseeme Regular Member

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    To me this lower costs argument don't work. I'm from GER. too. If I have to travel nearly 100km to a Rangliste or tournament the costs of the shuttles wouldn't change my mind. Shuttles are just a drop into the bucket.

    There are many expensive kinds of sports out there. What about cycling, skiing, horseback riding, etc? Everything popular in Germany and nobody asks about a low budget version. IMO it's just the attitude to the chosen kind of sports.
     
  17. necrohiero

    necrohiero Regular Member

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    That is true too. Attitude of course a big factor. That's why i ended up training for badminton.


    But then again, it's not just Germany. In Indonesia, the cost of Badminton is also rising (shuttles, etc). People then starts to think, why play this game when i can buy a ball, and it lasts 6-7 Months (like football) and play it for a year, than play something that is expensive and so fragile? Not saying that your argument is wrong. But it does happen. I meant to say this because i am eager to see badminton as a people sport. Something that rich guy and people that doesn't have anything can play. Sport that someone who doesn't really want to pay as much, could enjoy, so that it could become popular to the public.

    I have met some people that just doesn't show up anymore after i say that they have to pitch in a bit to buy balls (the feather ones).And using the plastics just hinder the ones that really wanted to play. Before my Hochschule ends up paying for some feather, we have to resort to plastics, which ends up injuring some player, broke a lot of strings, etc..

    In Football: You buy 20-30 Euros ball (which costs almost the same as a dozen of aerosensa), and could play with that same ball with 21 other people for so many months, with almost the same quality as the real ones that used professionally. Not just in Germany, Everywhere.
    The same reason that suddenly freeletics become popular. What do you need? Almost nothing! Just Your body, a pair of trainer, clothings, and maybe decent shoes, that's it.

    And for cycling, at least you can use the bike for other things (as a mean of transport). Skiing and Horseback riding; you can still rent equipments even if u do it twice a year, diving, etc.

    It WILL NOT make the sport instantly popular. Of course not. But at least also achievable to everyone.
     
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  18. m3w78

    m3w78 Regular Member

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    If your goal is merely to play the sport, then you can play badminton in your backyard with a rubber shuttle until the cows some home. Feather shuttles and high end equivalents are meant for people who want to play at a higher level than just recreation. People who play baseball at a high level get rid of the ball as soon as it touches the dirt. People who play tennis at high levels go through 6 tennis balls every 6 games. Entering the sport of badminton at the bottom level is no more unattainable then any other sport. With that said... I can't wait to start hearing real reviews of these new shuttles, by real non-paid players! And even more so, I can't wait to try them myself!
     
  19. necrohiero

    necrohiero Regular Member

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    Nope. Not at all. As i said in my argument before : "I have met some people that just doesn't show up anymore after i say that they have to pitch in a bit to buy balls (the feather ones)". and

    And I know that, in Pro football there are probably hundreds of ball being used the same day. (we just don't see it that much, they only put a new ball in when the ball go way out of bounds). The problem was in the middle part, also the gap between the people only trying to do backyard badminton, and the people who really are pro. There are of course many ways, even now, to circumvent the problem. (Like mine, that was so lucky that the school have some spare money for us to buy some feather, and it was still not enough).

    But if there are tools that allow us to play in the same quality plays as badminton intended to be played, AND it was cheaper. Why not right?
     
  20. ucantseeme

    ucantseeme Regular Member

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    @necrohiero Don't get me wrong, but if a kind of sports require some money and I don't have it or don't want to spend it, is a different thing.
    Also count in that feathers are made of naturally products (cork, leather, feather). Especially the ration between one shuttle and geese is very high.
    If I browse some specific threads here, where people show off with their collections of high end rackets and jump every year on the newest toy, I can't understand this whining about the prices.
    My club gives 50% discount on shuttles, but it depends how your club is structured and oragnized. A bunch of mid 50's who just hit some plastics every monday is a different kind of club like mine, who organize tournaments and "richtet 3-4 Doppelranglisten aus" per year has a bigger value of earned money to spend this for feathers.
    If I take a look at the parking lot and the big cars of most clubs and these guys are whining about high prices of every sporting good, I feel nothing.
    For poor people it's difficult, but if I can't afford it, I can't afford it. I can rant about the industriy and the big bad world, but I don't change anything. I have grown up with the approach, if I want something, I must earn it and if I don't want to earn it, I can't want it as much.
    Maybe I have a different attitude. I just play badminton and ride bicycle. Badminton more intense. There are many people out there who do 6,7,8 different kind of sports without any passion and ambition and have other expensive hobbys, too or like to party every weekend. That these people don't want to pay 1200 EUR per year for one kind of sports is natural. Everybody set his own priorities. I would welcome a decent synthetic shuttle which flies close to a feather or similar, but if not, I stay with feathers. And if the price increase to a level, where I must think about each role, I would try to get more quality games which are worth the birdie. If I must play with plastics, I stay home.
     
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