So I've only just started playing badminton again after I stopped for 5 years and I live in England. 5 years ago at my club it was extremely rare to find a racquet that wasn't made by Carlton, today everyone is using yonex, head or karakal. I looked at Carlton and amazon to get a rough idea of the pricing of Carlton racquets and I was surprised. It used to be that you could get a good performing and reliable racquet for £40 to £70 whereas today you are looking at £100-£150+ for a racquet that I hear lots of mixed reviews about. Now I know new more expensive materials are being used and inflation may have had caused a fluctuation in the price but what has affected the quality?
imo, carlton is a good brand....
carlton is from England if im not mistaken, am i right?
no wonder lots of people use it 5 years ago...
but dont know why that's not the case nowadays....
i think it about the marketing strategies of each company....
yonex sponsored a lot of great player, LCW, taufik hidayat, PG, even LD used yonex before change to Li ning.....
that may twist people's mind, "oh, they win titles and they are using yonex, so yonex racket is great", who knows that can happen.....
but dont you think skill and technique is everything in badminton??
but that's called marketing, they try to convince people that their racket is good and it looks like their strategy is a success...
about the price, it's because inflation, just like gundamzaku said...
not sure about the material, but i think there mot much differences....