Strings gives more power as tension drops?

The string will lose elasticity, therefore less power - reduced repulsion. After being stretched by contact with the shuttle, the strings natural ability to return to normal state is lazier. This results in a dulled feeling - less feel.

Fresh strings at 21 lbs will feel better than old strings that have dropped to 21 lbs from 25 lbs because the fresh strings have more elasticity. Hitting a shuttle hard has a very detrimental effect on strings over time.

 

At some point lower string tension give much better power than high tension. But as its low tension, its rather bouncy which makes accuracy become terible.

But at certain point, the power boost will be lessen or even drop. I mean if you have a trampoline & no matter how hard you push the trampoline, you wouldnt be able to catch the cloud right. Same does as racket, even if you turn into hulk & swing your racket full power, your shuttle wont fly like a speed of sound. So at certain point where you get stronger, instead of boosting you powerfull swing the bounciness would absorb your power & weaken it. So, having stronger physical muscle & better technique, you would want to rise the tension as your body already able to compensate the power loss or even able to hit stronger & at the same time gain better accuracy as the string bed become less bouncy.

 

How well a string holds tension or remains playable is entirely dependent on the string itself or the tension. For your example yes bg80 holds tension better than 66um, not because its a harder feeling string but 66um is just known for losing tension quickly and bg80 holds tension very well (quite the luck there).There are instances where its not like this, i.e bg65ti although a hard string it loses tension quicker compared to say...nbg99 which is a medium feeling string.

 

BG80 is perhaps one of the better strings at lower tension, because of the hard feeling, it will feel as if it has more tension compared to something like BG66 at the same tension.

You get the high tension feeling with the sweet spot of a lower tension string

 

I still don't buy into the low-tension = higher power theory. My personal experiences absolutely does NOT reflect this....

 

And the optimal window is for each person different and the distance in tension from fishing net to optimal and from optimal to wooden board isn't equal.

You can't say that the fishing net is at 20, optimal at 24 and wooden board at 28. Some people will feel the fishing net at 18lbs, optimal at 21 and anything above is a wooden board or others will feel the fishing net below 26, have the optimum from 28-32 and the wooden boards starts at 33. Or you are @swsh or @DinkAlot whose fishing net is below 32lbs. Optimum is 32-38lbs and the wooden board get never reached because the racket will die during the string job.

 

But why is it different for each person?

 

At certain point its true, lower tension = higher power.
Try find a flex & stiff racket or low tension & high tension racket. The basic is the same.

1st trial :
swing it lightly to do clear back to back line. With just light swing, you easily hit to the back line. Other hand on stiffer shaft you need to use more power to get to the back line.

2nd trial:
Try to hard smash (full power) with flex racket & then do the same with stiff racket. You would feel your smash will be stronger with stiff racket while flex racket would absorb your power instead unleasing it back to the shutlle.

 

Then basically it depends on racket swing speed.....

 

...terminal head speed at point of contact?

 

The racket swing speed depends from person to person. Some are able to accelerate the racket on a shorter swing, while others have a more smooth swing. Some hit cleaner, others don't. Some have a great technique and can use the whole power from the legs up to the racket by the kinetic chain, others use more the shoulder arm etc. and involve less of their body. Depending on the built and muscles types, some people are able to reach a higher swing speed than others, physical. IMO each person has a optimum for head weight, flex of the shaft and string tension for power. Regardless what you hear, if more head heavy racket, more stiff shaft or lower tension it really depends in whose hands and is a result of a combination which offers the max. power. Even if you find the personal max. of your power other aspects of the game can be more important to sacrifice.

 

Or change to a larger frame size racket. XD

 

larger frame wont help in power boost. It just that you have bigger sweetspot, so you can easily hit inside the sweetspot.