Hi, can someone recommend a doubles racquet and string for plastic birds. What are your success and feedback. Thanks.
Not sure racket will make much difference with nylon so just pick one you like the feel of and use BG65Ti strings. No need for fancy strings since thinner ones will break faster on nylon relative to feather anyway. Definitely don't use Aerosonic with nylon unless you have deep pockets for restringing. I'll assume Lakshminarayan was being sarcastic or playful with his recommendation .
i play exclusively with plastics at 26lbs of tension and all my strings last long. from bg66 to li-ning no1 and aerosonic. it breaks only on mis-hits which are more of timing issues on user end. at lower tensions wear-tear is less experienced than that at higher tensions. I would give that advice to everyone.
Don't see the logic of rackets not making a difference with plastics because they very much do. Especially if you play with top end plastics. They have decent flight.
Depends what you mean by long. For some, long can be 4 weeks since alternative strings will break in 1-2. For others this can be over a year (like the ladies at my club). Given your list of strings, I can see why you think they "all" last long. I've found BG66UM/F, LN1 and BGAS to have similar durability, about 4-6 weeks tops for me ignoring miss hits at my "lowly" 24-25lbs tension (playing average 4 hours per week). My comment about strings breaking faster on nylon is taken from anecdotal evidence from my some at my club and previous posts on this forum. I've never performed a scientific test on it so happy to be wrong there. I guess I should clarify my original statement: I personally feel that rackets matter less when playing with plastics relative to feathers. Due to reduced feel and flight of top end plastics compared to top end feathers a player is less likely to appreciate the improvements from a better racket (relative to feather as a standard caveat here). While it's hard to quantify, for illustrative purposes lets say you play 25% better on feathers with a better racket. This may only translate to 10% on nylon. Not a great example but again, hard to quantify. Before anyone gets too defensive and accusations fly about shuttle snobbery, I have yet to meet someone that plays at an intermediate (club level) or higher level that prefers nylon over plastics once you remove cost and availability from the decision, i.e. If you could play for 3 hours for a flat rate fee including shuttles, would you choose to use top end nylons to feathers? I suggested the OP buy a racket that they like the feel of. In case it wasn't clear this implies their personal preference for head heavy, light or balanced as well as stiffness and speed. The preference is subjective and personal and without knowing more details of the OP's standard and play style it's hard to provide further guidance, hence a general suggestion of "just pick one you like the feel of". If a player can't tell the difference then they're not likely to care what they play with. While top end plastics can have a decent flight I've never used one (given, it's been decades) that has the same bite or feedback as a good feather. Given this, I stand by my starting string recommendation of BG65Ti since it's a "workhorse" string with good durability and performance for the price. Also, it's the reference string (sits in the middle) for the Yonex string matrix so it's easier to determine what string to try next based on your opinion of BG65Ti.