This review is from: STIGA 3-Star Table Tennis Balls, (6-Pack) (Sports)
I ordered 6 balls over 6 months ago, and they arrived as specified and played as expected. I just ordered 12 more. There are various discussions in the reviews as to the quality and nature of the balls. Here is a little background: 1) Yes, table tennis is ping pong is table tennis. Note that the Chinese, who play much more than westerners, also regularly refer to it as “ping pong” (pronounced with slightly different vowels than English, normally the game is referred to in Chinese with the third character for ball: jiu, pronounced more or less like the English “geo”). 2) Some time back the standard ball size shifted from 38mm to 40mm. The current standard is 40mm, which these balls are. http://www.tabletennismaster.com/page/ping-pong-balls 3) Also, for TV perhaps, but also generally for visibility, neon orange balls are now often preferred to white balls. If your table is blue rather than green, the contrast with the orange balls is even better. White of course is old school. 4) 3-star balls are considered tournament quality rather than practice quality. They should bounce better and more consistently than 1-star, unmarked, or 2-star balls. But brand also provides some indicator of quality. Common ping pong brands, generally all from Asia, are TSP and Stiga, with more premium brands including Nittaku. Other well-known brands include Butterfly (traditional) and DHS (I saw on one site that they make over 2/3s of the ping pong balls today, no doubt to various quality specs and branding) (“Double Happiness”). 5) Since ping pong balls approved for tournament play are governed by specs for weight (2.7g), material (celluloid), size (40mm diameter), finish (matte), and bounce (0.4 coefficient of restitution), really the differences between balls should amount to quality and consistency. 6) Balls wear in usage. Over time a ball, unless cracked first, loses its matte finish so it becomes more slippery and faster. The 38mm balls (old school) should last longer because they were heavier for the surface area, and of course they should go faster and spin more, as that’s why they were changed for competition! No wonder some people say 40mm balls are “not as good” as the old balls.
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This review is from: STIGA 3-Star Table Tennis Balls, (6-Pack) (Sports)
You are getting a great quality product for a great price too. It’s a shame to see that they’ve been categorized as add-on items now (even though they shipped from different places than the other items in my order). We play every day at work and have found that out of the 4-5 different brands we have (and different star level too), these ones are our favorite brand, the weight is just perfect and I feel like they’re more similar to the average 3-star ball. We have other brands which feel totally different right away and we’ve just been discarding them slowly until they’re all in the bottom of a drawer somewhere.
Out of hundreds of hours of play I think we’ve only managed to damage one by hitting it super hard a bunch of times (other than by accidentally stepping on them or something). So they’re definitely worth getting wether you’re playing just for fun every once in a while or everyday use like me.
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Stiga 3star as specified–a short discourse on ping pong balls,
1) Yes, table tennis is ping pong is table tennis. Note that the Chinese, who play much more than westerners, also regularly refer to it as “ping pong” (pronounced with slightly different vowels than English, normally the game is referred to in Chinese with the third character for ball: jiu, pronounced more or less like the English “geo”).
2) Some time back the standard ball size shifted from 38mm to 40mm. The current standard is 40mm, which these balls are. http://www.tabletennismaster.com/page/ping-pong-balls
3) Also, for TV perhaps, but also generally for visibility, neon orange balls are now often preferred to white balls. If your table is blue rather than green, the contrast with the orange balls is even better. White of course is old school.
4) 3-star balls are considered tournament quality rather than practice quality. They should bounce better and more consistently than 1-star, unmarked, or 2-star balls. But brand also provides some indicator of quality. Common ping pong brands, generally all from Asia, are TSP and Stiga, with more premium brands including Nittaku. Other well-known brands include Butterfly (traditional) and DHS (I saw on one site that they make over 2/3s of the ping pong balls today, no doubt to various quality specs and branding) (“Double Happiness”).
5) Since ping pong balls approved for tournament play are governed by specs for weight (2.7g), material (celluloid), size (40mm diameter), finish (matte), and bounce (0.4 coefficient of restitution), really the differences between balls should amount to quality and consistency.
6) Balls wear in usage. Over time a ball, unless cracked first, loses its matte finish so it becomes more slippery and faster. The 38mm balls (old school) should last longer because they were heavier for the surface area, and of course they should go faster and spin more, as that’s why they were changed for competition! No wonder some people say 40mm balls are “not as good” as the old balls.
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|i wish they weren’t add-on items,
Out of hundreds of hours of play I think we’ve only managed to damage one by hitting it super hard a bunch of times (other than by accidentally stepping on them or something). So they’re definitely worth getting wether you’re playing just for fun every once in a while or everyday use like me.
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|Good ones,
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