Aren't top Kawasaki rackets comparable to top Yonex rackets?

Quality wise I believe both brands are comparable. When it comes to specifications though the two rackets you mentioned are quite different.

Price difference is because of the marketing, advertisement and sponsoring.

 

I wont say just Kawasaki.
Other brand like Apacs, Fleet, Flypower also have good quality comparable to big brand like Yonex, Lining, or Victor.
But does their racket good, well its very personal as their detail spec is different each other & not to mention their technology. Like AVP from Apacs that have quite alot lovers yet Yonex VT80Etn that not quite popular compare to its brother VT80

 

Brands like Gosen and Mizuno had also developed a lot of good models in these 10 years and with alot of fan ! Design and develop in Japan , produce in China or Taiwan . Their quality , design , and performance are excellent and some even better than Yonex ! Because of no super star players to promote them , they are less famous and popular than Yonex !

 

the least they should do is to market their product. Here, me & all my badminton friend hardly know Kawasaki & we all know Kawasaki is just a motor.
2nd is their marketing strategy. No matter how good a racket from unknown brand, & even if Yonex release a cheap racket with the price of high end, we all will go for Yonex if the price is at least the same. We mentally feel its a far better racket.

Apacs is known for its cheap but good quality racket tho no top user use it.

 

Yonex has technology advantage over other brands but they are reluctant to use good materials.
If other manufacturers are willing to use good materials, they may even out Yonex's advantage and make good / excellent rackets.

 

Isnt all of its tech & complicated stuff, mostly are marketing gimmic?

Like Trivoltage Yonex, we saw it on Apacs for Quadvoltaic or something. Also Adidas had Quatro Cage which is pretty much simmilar concept.

Yonex promote Namd, Nanometric, & all for their material. Lining use much simple saying that is Military Grade Carbon. Victor had Pyrofill, & Adidas had S.M.A.R.T naming.

All in all i think how the racket perform & feel in our hand is what most important regardless the price, the brand, & the tech.

 

Yes.

Actually, that's one of the few examples that actually are different. The other ones are referring to added weight at some points while the Quatro Cage thingy is a clearly different frame profile in four areas that's supposed to increase the dynamic stiffness of the frame. Since there really is a relation between the frame profile and the dynamic stiffness, that could make a difference and it's clearly different from the other technologies.

Still, I think a big part is the marketing, sometimes it seems to be more about trying to be different to have something to talk about and not about actually improving...

Putting weight in the head of the head heavy racket series? That's not very special, but the Tri Voltage System was a great marketing move to promote the heavy T-Joint as something special as part of that. Still some great rackets to be found in that range.

And that's a mistake Babolat is making nx opinion. Looking at details of their rackets, they did put some thought into it and there's some details that would be easy to use for marketing... but that seems to be basically non-existent.

And yes, I agree, most of that is marketing and even if some aspects do improve the performance, I probably couldn't feel the difference between that and a placebo.

 

Rank 25 Korean MD players Ko Sung Hyun and Shin Baek-Chol uses Apacs.
If anyone is wondering what racket their using, Ko uses Apacs Assailant Pro and Shin uses Apacs Pro Commander.

 

what is Dynamics Frame Stiffness? Is it some kind of flex point on the frame like 88D on 3 & 9 or 88S on 5 & 7? Not quite understand how it works & how it will help improve our games? Read their brocure but not quite get there.

 

It's the equivalent to static [regular] stiffness, just that the force is dynamic and not static.

The question should probably be "How does the static stiffness relate to badminton where all the forces are not static?"

Just read it as stiffness... or google it... or ask the holy wiki, although I don't know if they have an article on that or if it's hidden somewhere else...

 

In nearly 40 years ago ( early 80's ) , Kawasaki did launch a wide range of model to compete with Yonex . And at that time Kawasaki is still owning by a Japan company . In the 80's , the market share of Kawasaki and Yonex is about 30% / 50% , respectively . In the 90's , Kawasaki sold to a China company and the development dropped , and then no further new model and new technology on the rackets to compete with Yonex .

 

Brand come & go.
Company arise & fall.

The same like Nokia. Its everyone phone, if its not Nokia its not a phone. But they just to enjoy their throne & forgot their R&D. In the end the fall really hard.

Any company need to refresh their product via their marketing strategy or R&D so we buyer keep putting our eye on their product. Or else we will look to other side & eventually forget it.