Thanks to Dave1011 for letting me string his demos for him, err letting me test them I got F3 F5 (used P68) and P7 P8 (E66) all strung to 25lb. This was a little soft for the P68 which i use at 28, but about right for the E66. Quick note on the E66, its smooth/slippery as heck, great for power, but doesnt seem to lack control. POwer could be down to the head heavy frames used to test it, but one to try again! So I've parted with my Kalkuls. Nice as they were, they were just too head light. The A5 is on long term loan to a clubmate so it can't stray too far just in case. I enjoyed LN1, 68tx and BG80 but P68 really didn't work for me. My theory is that the right racquet for me works with ANY string setup. The nail in the coffin was that the Spieler is roughtly 1/3 the price and I find it equally nice to use. These are also borderline too head light/light overall but the heaviest one, with thick string, pretty much perfect. So my current goto is a 92g wet Spieler A09.1 with P68@28lb. I may be after like 1g of the weight moved up top, balance that with mid/thin string perhaps, and that should be ideal. So, testing the demos. really not enough time with just 2 sessions, but some brief notes: F3 - was strung too soft initially. Pretty much a stiffer spieler (sword frame). I like the flex of the spieler, and timing was off with the F5. Pass. F5 - same flex as spieler. tad more head weight then the A09.1/F3 (ideal!). Still really fast, and quite stable hoop. 1st sessions i saw some nice power from it, enough to buy one for myself. The pick of the bunch for me. 2nd session, timing was off. P7 - a bit cumbersome. not as soft as the F5/A09.1. probably not as stiff as F3. Very stable, potentially big power, but just too head heavy for me. The stability + slightly too soft shaft for the headweight prompted me to jump straight to P8. It's probably awesome for singles but too sluggish for me for doubles. P8. Way off spec for me, in terms of stiffness and headweight. I've used BS10 in the past but getting older and preferring more flex now. So this one really surprised me. It made crazy power out of nothing. Slightest touch from mid court caused a push to become a drive. Control excellent as it is rock solid. Surprisingly fast too, on a par with my fast frame 4u, which doesnt seem possible. Its got a kind of fat sword frame. Not a sword with rounded off edges, but a round frame with sharp edges. The shaft is real stiff and i think this is what helped it feel so responsive. Sadly, i was getting elbow pain after a few games - sore muscles rather than golfers elbow or anyhting more serious. If i can build up a bit more strength i would definitely consider upgrading to a P8 in the future. Even at 5x the price of a Spieler. So its top tier pricing, which is a shame, but a relief to my wallet. Apologies for the brief reviews. When i've restrung and adjusted to the F5 I will post more on that. As for the Uberschall stringing. I used to do haribito so the current uberchall pattern of round the world on the crosses wasnt much of an issue, had to keep referring back to the pattern though as its not quite the same as i used to use.
Thanks a lot for the reviews, and yea F5 stiffness is so right, it is stiff but not super, so easy to generate power but control is still there. So after trying P5 probs will go and order the heaviest of kalkuls - A3 and just for reference would like to have P8, unfortunately, to demo will have to order it, but why not
Thanks for the stringing @DuckFeet and the reviews. I hope you enjoyed the testing, if only for a short time. I'm hoping to review the remaining rackets next week before sending back. It's a shame I couldn't have the rackets longer but very appreciative to have tried them. So far for me the Kalkuls are out front. The A3 is very similar to Jetspeed 12 3u, great speed but with plenty of power. The A5 is most similar to a Jetspeed 10 4u, unbelievable speed and enough power for most doubles players. The A3 is marginally ahead of A5 at the moment but that could change. I had an A2 previously, it was a great introduction to the Kalkul range, very fast and with a little more flex in the shaft. I would compare the spec to BS12 but with a Jetspeed feel. Slightly too flexible for my taste but will suit many players. The F5 is a great racket, I would compare it to an Auraspeed 90k. I would say it's the best looking of the bunch. Slightly too head heavy for my dodgy shoulder to handle but great quality for the price and would suit many players. I had an F2 previously which was a great all rounder, good power, good speed, nice feel. The only reason for selling the F2 is I prefer the overall feel of the Kalkul range. My current thinking is to go ahead with the A3 and A5 as match rackets. I still have to test the F3, P3, P7, P8, A09.1 and F09.1SL. Looking at specs and initial feel the F3 should suit me, the P3 intrigues me but may be a little flexible for me. The P7/P8 and Spielers are out my normal comfort zone but it will be great to try them. Coming from mostly Victors (BS/JS/AS) as my match rackets over the last 10+ years the Kalkul and Uberschall ranges are easy to use straight away. I've used enough Li Ning, apacs, ashaway and other brands to appreciate just how good the latest Adidas rackets are, especially considering the RRP of them. I will give a further update once testing is complete.
Any news on sourcing the orange weighted Wucht grommets by the way? Cant remember who, if anyone, was looking. So the side ones intrigue me, if they add 0.5g or more I'm sold. The bottom 'U' grommets on the P8 weighed in at 0.9g. If i try one again I'd probably swap those out, and use the thinnest string i have. Sent from my SM-J510FN using Tapatalk
I will ask Adidas about sourcing them, just didn't get to it yet, about the weight they add: I didn't weigh the side strips alone though.
Thanks for enquries @speCulatius. Side strips should be about 1g then. No idea how much standard grommets weigh. Any ideas of price and availability in India? MIGHT be able to ask a clubmate to import some goodies for me. Edit. @Super85 thank you for that lovely picture of your kitchen scales if you weigh both sets does it register 1g?
I knew I should have quoted more... but I realized that after posting and thought you could still just look at the post I quoted (should be linked)... Again, that's when you replace all the orange parts.... The grommets were too long though, do that would yield another weight difference, the 0.8 g for the regular grommets should be seen as a maximum in that way. Weighting two at a time would have helped to reduce the error (divided by 2)... and that can be anything above 1g. Many scales actually have an error larger than that (5 g and I've even seen 10 g) if it's a kitchen scale. And 1 g of weight in the head of a racket is a lot.
I currently feel like my bag is filled with great rackets that are all supportive and easy to use (N9II, N80II, TK7000SN). And after having tested quite a number of more or less simliar rackets in the past months (Mizuno JPX LTD being the latest one), I just feel like I can't really expect another big wow-moment when staying within that very same category. And since my GAS never cools down completely, I was thinking about adding something more extreme to my collection - so in fact a racket that is less user friendly, but offers some extra potential for those "really good days". So the target spec looks as follows: - compact head (must!) - stiff and "snappy" shaft - more towards head heavy balance And the more I read in here, the more I think that the P8 will be next on my purchasing list. I've reactivated that P6 racket that I got for testing purposes about two weeks ago and if the P8 adds that little bit of stiffness and beef in the head, then it could be a killer of a racket. And even if I'm not the biggest fan of the grommet strips, I think it's a nice feature to be able to tweak with the head weight a little bit - so that makes it easy to go with the 3U since there is still the chance, to reduce the head weight towards a 4U'ish feel.
P8 is an awesome racket! Stiff and very HH, but at the same time easy to manover...very close to ZF2 and we know what we thinks about that racket. I’m a front dubblesplayer and plays with Adipower duoforce, but sometimes I like to pick up my P8 4U.
The P8 3U ist not really close to the ZF II 3U... maybe in between Z-Strike and ZF II... but... I would guess that this is exactly the difference between the P6 and P8, we'll find a way to get a test P8 to you when I'm back in Germany...
Oh wow, now that is a surprise! They were one of the first shops selling Adidas stuff, so I wonder what happened there in the meantime.
yep that is a bit troublesome if you would care about the brand continuity, but hopefully nothing too serious
Need some more reviews on the F3. My other rackets are being delayed, because of that things going on in China, so I need an in between "fix" to satisfy me. Weighing up the P5 vs F3. It's in that £60-£70, try without throwing lots of money at it, price bracket.
