It isn't fair, but was just one of my guess, why Grandmaster Kakinami's clients might feel so. IMO their shouldn't be difference blindfold on court, but maybe some guys are more sensitive than others in regards to patterns?
Top down vs bottom up is an arguable - arguable - difference, but I really can't see being able to tell apart a 1-piece from a 2-piece bottom up. What could cause the difference?
To be fair, Haribito is just a different method with a cool name. Makes people feel all special inside, and since at least 50% of the game is won by what's going on in their head, well...
I don't see why two piece would be better than one piece. Two piece is sometimes preferred for high tensions in case the string snaps on a pull. One piece means redoing the entire thing.
I have followed these 1-piece vs. 2-piece discussions since I started stringing about 1.5 years ago. My personal summary looks like this: I haven't heard and cannot imagine a single just remotely scientific argument why there should be any noticable difference between a fresh 1-piece and a fresh 2-piece string job - as long as both are done correctly and have the same tension ratios of course. There might be a difference over time coming from more or less tension loss (one additional tie-off knot and more string running on the outside of the frame on 2 piece). But IMO this effect is almost negligible since there are a lot of things during the string job that have more influence on the tension loss (pre-stretch, straightening the strings, quality of tie-off knots...). There might also be a difference between going bottom-up or top-down coming from a slight change in the shape of the racket head. But again, I see a lot more impact in other parts of the stringing process.
If a string snaps on one-piece or two-piece a broken string during pulls means to cut the whole racket and dumb it. Everything else is not professional and good service. I'm lean to call it bad practice. For one-piece you have to handle a few meters more on the mains to pull and pull it thru grommets. Can cause a bit wear and needs more time.
Why would you have to cut it all if a cross breaks? I mean I literally never do two piece, so I'd be interested to hear why you'd need to cut the mains if a cross broke.
If I string a racket and I do the crosses and the cross break after around 10-12 crosses, the racket deforms if I just cut the crosses and get the whole load of the mains in a second. This means stress for the racket and especially crosses break in high tension areas. I wouldn't risk a racket of my clients, just to save 3 USD and a few minutes due my own fault. Call me paranoid, but to me it's bad practice. If the crosses pop, I must made a mistake. Maybe I adjusted the clamps wrong, so I also did sloppy mains? The racket of my clients get threaten so well like a threat my own rackets. The world changed, but my stringing jobs are still "Made in Germany". A popped cross, means to me to cut all and do a new mounting.
While it's true the load all goes to the mains, isn't that the case before you start the crosses anyway? I can understand if it makes you doubt the quality of the overall job though. Personally I would just redo the crosses if it were 2 piece, unless I noticed for myself that there was something bad about it on court. If say, I suddenly got a premature break after I did that, I'd be more convinced. I guess just a seeing is believing thing.
A nugget from Liam Nolan of the UKRSA: Stringer X is stringing a racketball tournament and has a racket in the frame - needs to go on court in five minutes. X pulls the top cross... BANG. Uh-oh... and none of that string left! X, sweating bullets, decides to pull the second-to-last cross and tie it off, and then spies a scrap in the bin that's long enough for the top cross. Trouble is, it's yellow, and the rest of the bed is white... Player comes for the racket, which is now a six-knot, three-piece job, and asks about the yellow top cross. "Oh - that's the... power string" X pulls out of his arse. Player frowns, but takes the racket anyway. Players wins the tournament... and now wants the "power string" on all his rackets. Correlation/causation fallacy, patterns, by and large, are no different from lucky socks.
Difference is not the load, but the difference is how the load is applied(t). When you do the mains, you apply the load step by step over time(t). If you cut the cross strings which compensated the load to a point and send the stress to the top get cutted, you have the same load, but it is applied within a second. Cheaper machines, need to adjusted sometimes at the bottom shoulder supports if you do the bottom up crosses past them. You need to tighten them gently just a mm, because they become loose or the tension ratio is not 100% perfect, which can sometimes happen. These are the reason why I don't do it and can't recommend.
Even though you have 4 knots with 3 having tension loss, the tension loss is minimal with badminton rackets. with tennis I add an extra 10 pounds to compensate for the tension loss. To me 2 shorter pieces stay tighter than 1 long piece of string, never really tried to compare 1pc to 2pc with my stringing method. To loyal to the green and blue, always use 2pc. I take that back at Olympics we had a problem with BG66 Ultimax on Taufik's rackets, I think it might have been the German stringers, but we were told to do 1pc on Taufik's rackets BG66UM 36lbs. Only time I did 1pc in my professional career.
