Here is the Adidas shuttlecock lineup that will be available in Europe: Again, they chose a German name and cover quite a wide price range. Looks like I'll get to test some of the better ones, but since I won't get to play much for the next one to two months, maybe one of you already tried them? How big is the difference between FS6 and FS7? Has anyone seen in store prices? Are any of the cheaper ones worth the money? I'm interested in your experience... until I have my own opinion.
35euros for a tube of top grade shuttles seems very expensive.. that's more expensive than AS50 here.
It's 35€ rrp (recommended retail price). I would expect them to sell for about 29€ just like as50. Haven't seen them in any store yet. Is there a release date?
Tennistown.de has them for just below 30 (this is 2 more than AS40, no AS50 available, same price as Victor Master Ace), delivery within three business days, but in my opinion they're always on the more expensive side for shuttles. Haven't seen them anywhere else. Since I won't get to play with the tube (FS7 or FS6, I don't even know) that's on the way to my home until August, I started this thread.
As long as Adidas don't have a license of official shuttle for my state (NRW same state as @speCulatius play) it's useless to buy it. I can't use it at ranking tournaments or league games. IMO a must if you wanna sell shuttles in Germany or make contracts with clubs. You need to have NRW for season 19/20 in your pocket to get a feet into the door of Germany. A very big part of Germany. And as long as I get shuttles at half or third of the price in a shop from the clubs I play, I will never spend such amount of money for a training shuttle. Adidas makes the same mistake like before (not buying the license for NRW for around 800€) to join the serious shuttle game.
Doesn't look too good for Adidas. Haven't seen those shuttles beside tennistown. A few weeks ago when I tried to order some mid-range shuttles for testing (I think it was fs4) tennistown told me that it's out of stock and not available anymore. They still list them on their website thou... Maybe they stocked up on them again.
Yeah, had a quick browse of prices here in UK and found the FS7 at £19.99. Same price as AS30 at the same shop, so if they're close to being real A grade feathers, it should be a no brainer. Tried a similar ish shuttle at decathlon recently at the same price point, so would be interesting to compare between the two.
FS7 comes with consistent flight paths across the birds. This is the factor which is very concerning to me. Time and again, there are slight "lateral drift" during the flight for a couple of birds in one tube of Victor Mater Ace. But as a fast consuming thing, I will for the time being stick to Lining A+300 cos it's cheaper than FS7 and Master Ace and still meet my demand in flight consistency.
I finally bought some to test... While I do get a discount on some ADIDAS things, shuttles are not included. I bought them at a regular shop that had a 20% discount, so I paid about the price for the AS20 (FS6) and AS30 (FS7), but normally the prices would compare to the AS40 and AS50, I believe. The first look doesn't show much difference between the two and not much difference to the AS30. I didn't get to play with them yet. The tubes are slightly longer than all others I've seen so far and they look great it matt black.
I also got a tube of FS6 with that discount sitting at home and waiting to be tested. First optical impression is really good I would say. But as always, the court will tell the truth!
I've played a significant amount of time with FS7, FS6, and FS5. Both FS6 and FS7 are really high quality shuttles with a good flight, really good feel and good durability, even outstanding for the FS7. That was to be expected at the price points. I would go as far as to say that I'd choose FS6 over AS30 and FS7 over AS40 at the same price. The real surprise is the FS5 in my opinion. As a first note, Adidas changed it to be goose feathers a while ago... The flight curve is slightly different than Yonex, but consistent and totally fine. The feedback/feel is a bit worse than FS6 and FS7 but still good for both the cork and the feathers. What really stands out is the durability. They slow down pretty quickly, but just a little bit and then they'll stay there for a long time. A very long time. It's very rare that a feather breaks or the shuttle suffers some other clear death, so... here's an example of a shuttle that has been through more than 3 complete 21 point games of doubles where it has not always been hit cleanly... That's just impressive. All this at the price point below 20€ per tube, while AS20, Babolat 1, and Victor Service retail around 23€, that's just a killer value. I would say the FS5 can compete with AS30, so one level above the other three.... at (again) below 20€ per tube? That's just a killer value, especially since nobody can say that higher end shuttles will last longer. I really hope Adidas can keep that aggressive price.
Do we know at what point FS5 turned to Goose? Just seen FS5 for less than £15 about £4 cheaper than AS20, but the packaging says Duck, but not sure if it makes a big difference at that price point.
More than a year ago. If you can look at the packaging, you can look at the sticker with the production date, I guess it'll say 2019.... not sure if I'd go for that. If it's just a picture online, I'd assume that you'll get newer (goose) shuttles.
We tried the FS5s (goose) last night. Flight is consistent, didn't notice much slow down in speed. Each shuttle lasted an average of around 35 - 40 points of doubles. Experiment not helped by having two weaker players in the group who would occasionally miss hit, e.g. hitting a feather out on defence. Bought the tube for £14. I'd say equivalent to AS20s but don't expect the shuttle to last much more than a game, they need to be cleanly hit too.
