Christmas is early for me this year. Look what Santa (aka the mailman) brought me today:


As some may have read, I was looking for a proper spare racket for my JS10 4U since a while now and when I got offered a JS10 3U KR**P, I simply couldn't resist the temptation. I wanted to see for myself if the mystery around those magical player rackets is even remotely true or just an urban badminton myth.
Of course, I did some measuring (dry and wet) first and it ended in a bit of a surprise:
JS10 3U KR**P
dry (without strings, original grip intact, plastic removed)
Overall weight: 86,4 g
Head weight: 37,2 g
Balance point: 293 mm
wet (strung with Li-Ning No. 1, original grip plus RKEP G-10 overgrip on top)
Overall weight: 95,3 g
Head weight: 40,1 g
Balance point: 293 mm
Now for the surprise...
JS10 4U commercial version (DE-coded)
wet (strung with Li-Ning No. 1, original grip plus RKEP G-10 overgrip on top)
Overall weight: 94,4 g
Head weight: 39,2 g
Balance point: 292 mm
So at the exact same string/grip setup, the differences in spec between the 3U and 4U are just marginal.
Dry swinging both of them blindfolded, it's hard to impossible to tell which one is which. I have never measured the 4U without strings and overgrip, but it seem that is definitely on the heavier 4U side. Stiffness too feels exactly the same, handle length is identical.
To see easily which on is which, I chose the "more evil" black look for the 3U, whilst my 4U remains in bright yellow (and by the way, this was the first time I strung a racket with black strings and it sucks!

):
I am now sooo excited to get the KR**P on court tomorrow and see if its magic can be felt there.
To be continued...