anyone got their hands on auraspeed 98K? Let me know how do you feel about it and compare it to the 90S and 90K? and also the stiffness. Not so much information about it in the website.
Super interesting but while Victor claims the handle boosts overall performances vs wooden handle I'd like to know why instead of just believing what they say. For instance, how does a plastic handle help achieve what they claim in the photo above? Also questionable in terms of sustainability.
Seems like marketing gimmic. They can make a plastic shaft or anything & say it will be more powerfull more control or whatsoever but well... Even knowing that, im sure some few people out there will take the bait to buy & try it.
100% agreed. Marketing gibberish at its finest. Bottom line - it's cheaper, that's what it is. Mizuno tries to implement carbon fibre handles on some rackets, but so far even that doesn't seem to be that successful with the customers. And let's be honest, how much influence on power does the handle have?! Slim to none. It mostly has to transfer the right feel (vibrations) coming from the acutal impact through the shaft into the hand, and here is where wood is doing a great job.
Totally agree with you guys and I feel bad for Victor which is a brand I like very much but coming up with stuff like that doesn't make me want to actually purchase their stuff at all... I mean they always market their new rackets with so called new technologies and they miss the essential idea behind marketing I believe. Using their stars and conveying a performance based message. I mean use LZJ or TTY in action with a nice sport slogan, a bit of new technology is welcome for sure and that's it. But abusing the tech language to sell stuff without any actual explanations or proofs is a bit of a turn off for me.
The Thruster BXR has a part carbon fibre handle too but it didn't seem to feel any different when playing
Interesting, I didn't know that. Does anyone remember those real-one-piece carbon rackets from the 90s (like Carlton Powerflo series...)? THAT is the right way to do a carbon handle! I wonder when a manufacturer is going to dig out that concept again and sell it as the latest sh*t around. To be fair, that's what basically all manufacturers do. Yonex gave the blueprint and it works perfectly for them. The thing is that Victor somehow lost their mojo in the past years and come up with rather weak strategies to promote their "innovations". Just look at that plastic handle - I mean, you have to try a bit harder to lure people into thinking that it's a great thing then posting a bad picture of a simple white plastic tube and saying "it improves power and we needed ages to develop it!". That's so lame that customers tend to feel obviously fooled.
It's not just the weak promotion of their technological innovations. I think their biggest mistake was making too many rackets too fast and also having their successor models being unable to live up to their predecessors. As a consumer personally it feels like they're just trying to fill up gaps that don't exist or don't require filling. Their other major problem is not having sufficient star power to promote their new rackets or being able to get them to switch over from older models. The Auraspeed line is a perfect example IMO. They started with the 70K and F that on paper had basically the same specs but one was a bit more flexible than the other despite both having stiff shafts. I'm not sure about head balance though as I didn't really give the 70F a look at all. The 80X was so stupidly specced that I doubt anyone even remembers it at all. Then they come out with the 90S which fortunately is a great replacment for the well received but old BS12. Then they come out with the 90K as what feels like an after thought IMO. I think their nail in the coffin for the ARS line is truly the 98K. Aesthetically it's already a very subjective look. On paper the specs don't seem to be anything new. So we're left with stock images to try figure out and speculate if they've tried to do or have done anything new with the series. I think another thing that really doesn't help is that they don't seem to have a single fixed naming/numbering convention for rackets that gives customers something to logically expect. Before it used to be simple where they had running numbers in increments of 1 or 10s. Even if the specs were rather all over the place for the numbering convention but at least it made some convoluted sense. Now they do the 70, 80, 90 jig but suddenly you come up with a stupid 98 that doesn't seem to have any meaningful sense at all. Doesn't breed customer confidence IMO. Especially with their past material issues that users here have encountered. Victor is running themselves into the ground with their sales and marketing approach. There's just no other way to put it. Which I think really is a shame because they've shown they can make great products. I used to love to get their stuff early on but right now I only buy their stuff if I get a insanely good deal on a used product. Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk
https://au.victorsport.com/news/189...-grounds-with-innovative-free-core-technology Apparently the Drivex 9x will have Victor's stiffest shaft ever? As if the mx80 and sw35 weren't stiff enough already... :/
okay, this one is killing me: "The newly designed lightweight end cap moves the balance point higher up and achieves more powerful attacking strength."
Oh god now they're propogating false information.. We're gonna go back to the vicious cycle of 3inch thick grips and even balanced AX99s now. Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk
why not infuse the carbon handle with Nitro as it will increase the speed. Well cars run faster with Nitro right. But before that melt the carbon using the power of stars like how Thor get his Stormbreaker. It will spark some lightning when smashing, increase its power significantly. Then expose it to gama radiation for a week so it gain superb regeneration so it wont be broken. At least Hulk shorts never rip apart no matter what. All that seems more logic than the plastic handle to me.
To this day I still use the Victor MeteorX JJS (3U) and have been looking for a suitable replacement from Victor (I disliked the Hypernanos). Ignoring the marketing of new tech, the DriveX looks like it will replace the Hypernanos and the 9X does seem to have specs similar to that of the MX-80/90/JJS (MX-80 being the stiffest of the lot). I do have a slimmer of hope that this will be comparable to the Meteors. Hoping someone can provide a thorough review as I haven't seen anything written so far on the DriveX 7K which has been in the market since September 2019.
