175. Volair CMD Hybrid, Gearbox Pressure X, & What is Happening with Grit?!

[00:00:03] All right, what's up guys? We are back with another podcast episode this week. This week we're going to be talking a little bit about some shoes, some more YolaFX theories. You guys had some really funny jokes on some videos I posted last week that I just thought were worth reiterating here. And then we're going to talk a lot about more grit discussion as if, you know, people couldn't be more sick of this topic. But there's a lot of interesting things from last week's topic, new stuff we found this week that I think is going to be a little bit more.

[00:00:30] Which is really important to unpack that I kind of feel like has been being missed a lot. And then we're going to talk about a couple new paddles, Boulder Opal, the Pressure X from Gearbox and the new Command Hybrid from Volair. And then there'll be some fun stuff in the kitchen for you guys. But yeah, let's get right into it. Let's do this thing. All right. First thing that I want to go over just really quickly. So last week I was telling you guys, you know, back's been doing better, but still had to go kind of slow, whatever. I don't know what happened from that podcast.

[00:01:01] To this podcast. But it's like, I'm, I'm like cured. I like literally don't know what happened. So even last week when my back was doing good, I would still wake up and be like, Oh, okay. I got to be, you know, maybe a little more careful in how I move or bend over or whatever, but nothing really hurt. It was just like, I still got to be a little careful.

[00:01:19] This week, all of a sudden I'm just like back to normal. Like I I've played way more pickleball this. I actually think, I think I've played every day this week. Maybe, maybe I missed one day and I feel completely normal. Uh, so I have no idea. I'm still going to be careful, but that was, I haven't felt this normal. In fact, I forgot how normal it feels to feel normal. Like I, it feels weird how normal I feel.

[00:01:43] Yeah. Uh, so just very bizarre, but yeah, that has resulted in me getting a lot more core time. So a plus to that. Uh, I think a big thing from last week to this week that I kind of realized was reducing my stress helps a lot. I think my back pain was like heavily linked to stress. Uh, so that has, I've just found different ways to kind of lower that a little bit and that has helped a lot. So huzzah. Hopefully we stay that way.

[00:02:10] Yeah. Hopefully you can stay that way. Your back is getting better. Somehow my shoulder is getting worse and uh, yeah, we got to get you on all the same stuff I was doing, man, but for your shoulder. I, I've been working on it, but this left shoulder is stubborn, man.

[00:02:22] I know. All right. Let's talk about some shoes. So we're going to talk about our favorite shoes. And this came up for one main reason. Okay. So Justin, the other day was like, I think he said somewhere. He's like, you know, you know, uh, Chris is like too big to listen to our pod, whatever. So I was like, Oh, you know what? I'll humor Justin. Like, let me, let me tune in and listen. And I will listen to, you know, pods occasionally, but a lot of times the weeks are just too busy to catch all of them.

[00:02:45] So unless I see a title or something that is just really interesting, sometimes I won't get to it. So I was like, Oh, this one sounds kind of interesting. Let me tune in. So first of all, I'm listening to the pod and you know, they're talking about like the Zen and the enhanced turbo. And, uh, he was talking about that, you know, the ball test I was doing to make it slide, which is just like, you know, I called it a hillbilly friction test, but you know, Justin decides to make it a little personal. He's like, Oh, you know, Chris came up with this little test. It's kind of like this, you know, little homeschool test. And I was like, Oh, Oh shoot.

[00:03:14] I pop onto the pod and he goes homeschool slander on us. For those of you who don't know, we were, we were both homeschooled. Yeah. Uh, but I was like, Justin, I finally decided to listen and immediate slander to my name. Immediate slander. Bro, say that to our face. It's all good fun. I'm completely joking. I did not actually take any offense to it, but I did think it was actually very funny that the one pod I tuned into was,

[00:03:38] well, look at this homeschool test from Chris. I was like, God dang it, Justin. But then he, he redeemed it or he redeemed himself because Justin finally had a great and correct shoe take. So I, for those of you who don't know, this is probably the only thing in my pickleball journey with gear that has been consistent since 2022.

[00:04:01] 2022. I think I have basically strictly worn head shoes, specifically the same line of head shoes from then until now. Now, when they upgrade the model, I'll go up to that model, but the head revolts line, I started with the three, five. I went to the four Oh, I went to the four, five, and now they have the five Oh and the pro. And Justin was talking about this shoe. You can go listen to their pod. If you want to hear more about it, cause he goes way more in depth, but I think it was like,

[00:04:28] there was an a six gel model that was really popular, like the nines or something. And then it got discontinued and the new one was terrible. And he was just saying, these are very similar. Uh, this head revolt pro five point or 5.0 pro model is very similar. And so he was just saying, this is a great shoe. And I've been saying the head revolts have been an amazing shoe for a long time. And all the reviewers always dogging on me. They're like that shoes garbage, blah, blah, blah. But I actually did figure out why I think a lot of people had that take with

[00:04:57] that shoe. And it makes perfect sense in hindsight. So I am a size nine and a half. I have worn all of their shoes in a nine and a half until this one. When I asked for a nine and a half, I was like, well, this is like too big. I was like, what happened? I was like, that's weird. And then I asked them about it. And apparently their old sizing ran small. So basically everyone else was getting their shoe crammed into something too small. And I've learned for myself that I actually

[00:05:23] like the shoe to be tighter on my foot. I don't want my foot to be completely squeezed to death, but the tighter it feels on me, I feel more nimble. And when there's a little extra space in the toe, I just feel like I'm going to trip or something like that. So I actually use a size nine now in the head revolt, uh, 5.0 pros. Uh, but yeah, I think I've thought these shoes have been awesome. In fact, the 5.0 pro has been my favorite model of the ones they've ever made. I still sometimes

[00:05:52] actually wear the 4.0s cause I had so many of them. I think I'm down to one more pair. Um, but yeah, just, you can go listen to Justin. If you want an in-depth, uh, breakdown on shoes, that's not going to be for me personally for shoes. I don't find that I've had a shoe. I only noticed it if it's bad for me, but in terms of performance, like once I find a shoe, that's good. I'm like, I don't need to switch. This is fine. I don't want to mess around and roll an ankle in a new shoe that was too unstable. So I just stick to the same thing.

[00:06:20] I've just had such issues with my feet and shoes. Um, I just have really weird shaped feet and get a lot of pain in some of my toes. And I've had really bad plantar fasciitis that once I found a shoe that caused no pain, I'm like, I am not switching off of this. That's the same reason why I started using the heads. I had really bad plantar fasciitis, tried different shoes. And then when I went to these, I don't think it was strictly the shoe. There were other things that I was doing at the time, but it just happened to be when I switched and I was like, I'm, I'm not switching.

[00:06:49] Yeah. I don't want pain anymore. I'm good. Yeah. Same. And for me, like once I found that I've tried a ton of different shoes, but, uh, the jet mock threes by far the best shoe. And I just shoes are so personal. It's different for everyone. Like when I say the best shoe, I mean the best shoe for me. Cause like, I know they are very popular and a lot of people like them, but I know there are people out there who hate them. So it's not for everybody shoes. I'm not a shoe expert,

[00:07:16] so I'm not going to get into that, but they're great for me. The jet mock lineup, the, the jet mock, uh, threes, and then the new fours. I really like as well. I probably still prefer the threes durability got a little bit better with the fours. Um, but I, for pure performance, the jet mock threes are, what is it about the three that you'd like more? I think it's a little lighter. Uh, I don't know that for a fact I'd have to like look at the spec sheet, but just wearing them and using them, I feel like they bend a little bit more freely. Um, which one?

[00:07:45] The threes. I would agree with that. Cause the first time I tried the four, I was not really a fan of the four at all. And now granted I didn't fully break them in the head shoes for me. I've never felt that they needed a huge break in a little bit, but not significant. The fours to me, the jet mock felt a lot stiffer than the three. Yes, definitely much stiffer needed more break in and I was fine with that. The toe box is a little bit more square. Um, so it seems like there's a teeny bit more space in the toe box, which was nice. Um, but the downside is there's just more

[00:08:15] material around the toe. So it's just a overall more rigid shoe than the threes, but that comes with more durability. Cause I mean, I will go through a pair of shoes, jet mock threes in, in three weeks if I'm really training and drilling a lot. So durability goes down, but to not have any issues or pain with my feet. And I'm so picky about how light a shoe is. If it is at all heavy,

[00:08:40] I won't even touch it. Yeah. Like I hate heavy shoes. It'd be interesting to, uh, cause I don't know the weights of, you know, my heads or the jet mocks or anything. It would just be kind of interesting to know the weights of the jet mock threes and know like at what weight for you, you're like, ah, this is like too heavy. Yeah. Is it one ounce is an ounce and a half. Is it like, you know, I don't know. I don't, I don't pay attention to any of that because the, for me, the head shoes have just worked. So I'm like, I'm just going to keep wearing them until they

[00:09:06] don't work. Well, that's, that's the same thing for me. I'm like, I don't know enough about shoes and I just know these work. So I don't even want to like think about it. I've tried some shoes that I like, but I can tell through more and more play every once in a while, I'll just feel some pressure points. Maybe on my like pinky toe or the side of my feet, maybe the arch, and I can just tell it doesn't quite feel right. And so I immediately want to go back. Maybe my feet are just so used to jet mock threes that they've kind of formed to that and are used to them and they don't want to get used

[00:09:35] to new shoes. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, the, I've, and like the sketcher shoes were okay. Those felt fine on my feet, but they were just heavy. Um, some Selkirk shoes have been fine, but again, slightly heavy or, uh, I just didn't quite like the material, the, the outsole. Uh, I couldn't slide as well. Yeah. I don't know what it is. Jet mocks have been the only shoe I can consistently slide well in everything else. Can't do it. Same. I've, uh, there are definitely shoes that

[00:10:05] are harder for me to slide in. Uh, but I, same with the heads. Like I can just slide out of the box. Yeah. Like maybe it needs 30 minutes or something of kind of moving around. But after that golden, like sliding has never been an issue. And now look, if you don't slide that none of this, I think that very large percentage of the pickleball population is not sliding. Yeah. Um, nor should you, I mean, it's not good for your joints. It's not great. Like it's honestly, kind of a bad habit and I don't do it all the time. I try to limit it. Yeah, for sure. Um,

[00:10:34] but those like, I have a very strict preference on shoes. Yeah. So yeah, I'm a, I'm a big fan of the pro 5.0s and I don't think we've mentioned this many times, but we actually do have our code works for Babelot shoes and head shoes. And I mean, I think it works for a number of different, um, companies for their shoes, but we're always talking about paddles that I always forget to mention that it does work. Um, so yeah, you should be able to save some money on jet mocks. And I think, cause I don't know the jet mock price off the top of my head, but the head revolts are one 29.

[00:11:02] And then I think after a code, it's like one Oh nine. So in terms of court shoes, like that's pretty reasonable price. Um, but yeah, big fan of the heads. You're a big fan of jet mock. Uh, so give them a shot, but I would definitely, when it comes to shoes, it's not like a paddle where I feel like you can maybe more blindly say like, Oh, I think this person will like this. I would try these on somewhere. If you can do not buy this like, Oh, Hey, they said this was great. Like your feet might be completely different. Yeah. I've had some people come up to me and be like, Hey, what do you think of these shoes? And I'm like, well, I can tell you how they work for me, but for

[00:11:31] you, I have no clue. I don't know if you have wide feet, flat feet, arch feet. Like, I don't know. Nope. Exactly. And I, I couldn't even tell you what the heads are because I don't know enough about it. I just know they work. Fair enough. Okay. Next thing I just want to talk about. So, uh, the Yola FX, you know, we're getting closer to this thing coming out and there was something I actually realized when I made this little reel talking about, uh, just my thoughts on what I thought this whole paddle could be. And one of the things I was talking about is, you know,

[00:11:58] it's kind of weird for Yola to launch paddles, not at the same time as the flagship, but I believe that actually has happened a couple times, maybe once or twice. Like I think last year, the vision line came out later than the pro model. And so maybe that's not abnormal for Yola to actually release something mid year. It just happens to be, you know, more of their budget line or consumer type

[00:12:23] of thing. But I think the reason people are so interested in the FX model, even if it ends up being, which it sounds like it kind of will more in that budget option, like it's not going to be a flagship from everything I've heard. I think the reason it feels like a bigger deal is because at the event earlier this year, it just felt like the general sentiment for Yola was like anti-foam, maybe not anti, but like, Hey, we currently don't really believe in this or we think

[00:12:49] honeycomb is still the best option. So now it feels more interesting that Yola is releasing a foam model. Well, and all the questions that people ask, they owe it about foam. And when, if they were interested in or working on making a foam paddle, they would always say, well, we feel honeycomb just gives better performance, but wouldn't really ever elaborate on what that meant. And so I've just felt like they never really had a good reason as to why they didn't want to make a foam paddle.

[00:13:18] One, they said stuff too, like, you know, we don't want to do it unless we can feel like we add some innovation. So then I'm like, okay, well, if this FX is not going to be a flagship, like what is it just going to be like a diving board or full ring and then a foam core? Cause then it's like, okay, well you said you didn't want to do that, but then you literally just put that in the market. So I don't know. It's like, we can only speculate right now, but it did start to make more sense to me why that paddle is probably being released, uh, late this year. Cause they have done that

[00:13:47] before, but then, you know, I'm sure like some other thoughts I have is one, if the foam paddles, which almost certainly were eating into their sales. Cause I, again, I, the next tournament, we go to the local tournament. I actually think I'm going to take a tally of like every division while I'm there and just see what people are using because I just haven't seen a lot of pro five. So I wonder how much of the sales were suffering this year compared to the gen three, the pro four, the three S this dropped drastically. It's yeah, it's what it seems like. Um, so I'm curious there,

[00:14:16] but then there were a couple of comments that just made me laugh on my video. And I was like, I gotta, I gotta say these on the podcast. First one was they're going to make the FX bad as a foam paddle to increase sales of the pro six and be like, look, foam does suck. Now look, this is meant to be a humorous comment. Who knows if that's what they're actually going for. But I was like, that's like a 3000 IQ play. I think was, it might've been Kevin. But that's not going to make

[00:14:41] that's not going to make foam paddles across the industry bad. Exactly. It's like those other foam that'll just make other companies, foam paddles look better and make Yola look dumb. I feel like if they do that. But I guess depending on the type of demographic, if they're like, Oh yeah, Yola was right. Look like they made a foam paddle. It wasn't that good for the, the diehard Yola fanboys. Yes. That is exactly what they will say. It'd be like, see foam sucks and I'm going to buy a pro six or whatever. So also how long do you think they're going to hold onto that name? Kind of like the iPhone. You think they're all going to go all the

[00:15:10] way up to 10? It'll be at pro X. Yeah, probably. I mean, I it's, you know, what's funny about it is I wouldn't say it's like a clever name. Like to me, you know, probably the best name of all time that I've seen for a paddle is the boomstick. I'm like, that was just very clever. I think that was well done. It matched the name, the sound, everything about that felt like a perfect matchup. But in terms of simplicity, you're never going to be confused about pro five, pro six. You just know, Oh, Hey, that's the new one. It's true. So to me, I'm like that naming

[00:15:40] scheme. I'm like, that's perfect. Cause look at some of these other companies. Like let's take Luz for example, they have the Inferno. Then they're like, here's the frozen Inferno. Then they have the Inferno two M one. You're like, what does this mean? Which one is the newer one? Which one's better? Yeah. You're never going to be confused with Yola. So I do give them props on that. That's valid. Then another comment that made me laugh was they're like, Yola is going to be the first company to launch a foam paddle that core crushes. Now, obviously that's

[00:16:08] not going to happen, but I did just think that was funny. Oh, that's, yeah, that's a good comment. That gave me a good laugh. Um, so yeah, I don't know. Very curious to see what it is. I think expectations should probably be low again. They're not going to release a paddle that eclipses their current pro five. What if it does? What if it ends up, what if it's like any of the, these other foam paddles? Let's just say like for me, like what if it's, it's a aura pro I'd be like, bro, this thing is infinitely better than the profile. I mean,

[00:16:37] I hope it is like, I hope it's a good paddle, you know, like you're going to pull a rhombus. What's that? They cannibalize their sales? Yeah. They have a $250 pad, the ripple, and then they make the quanta that's a hundred bucks and no one will ever buy a ripple. Yeah, exactly. So that would be really funny. So yeah, you know, when, whenever that comes out, uh, we'll buy some and we'll, we'll give you guys some thoughts. Um, I'm also curious if it'll come in only one shape or if it'll be multiple shapes. My guess is one, I doubt they do all the

[00:17:03] shapes. Well, I'm trying to think with like the vision lineup, they did multiple, right? They did the wide body elongated. I actually can't remember. I actually don't think I've ever seen a vision in the wild. I've never seen a vision in the wild. Yeah. Never. I think I've ever seen it. Yeah. And not, but I guess when we say vision, we mean like the heat vision, double vision, whatever. Yeah. Not the old vision. The old vision. Those were everywhere. Yeah. The original visions were everywhere. No, the, uh, the heat vision and that stuff. I've, yeah, I've never seen

[00:17:27] one in the wild. Um, but I'm pretty sure they had a Scorpius shape and, uh, Perseus shape of those. I I'm pretty sure. Okay. So I just wanted to pop in here real quick because Daryl, the owner of Vatic pro messaged us after we recorded the pod. And I think there's extra helpful context that will help clear up some of the confusion. Daryl said, I just wanted to clear some things. So people don't automatically assume John's test or your test aren't accurate or something because I'm reasonably sure that all the variance is coming from production. There were

[00:17:56] definitely some fundamental errors in our design that caused the variance that we are seeing. Although it was intentional, the embedded grip particles we use are much smaller than some other paddles. So the rate at which they rise to the surface seems to vary as well. This effect is also exaggerated by the print over the face for the stars. We're definitely going to make it right, but I think this would help people know what's going on. You'll hear in just a minute from Isaac and I, that one of our theories is that manufacturing of

[00:18:23] these new grits has just been highly inconsistent. And a lot of these factories may not have a flushed out process for actually making these grits properly. And that seems to be what's happening here and is happening almost across the industry. There's really only been a couple of companies that have successfully made a tier one long lasting grit while everyone else thinks they have one and then it ends up being a bad batch or it doesn't actually work. And that seems to be

[00:18:47] what happened here. And while I'm glad Batic has an idea of what is going on and it sounds like hopefully they're going to make it right for their consumers, this type of stuff has to stop. Like I don't feel like it's acceptable for the consumers to be the beta testers. This is what your testing period before you release a product is for. So yes, I hope that all the people who bought a Vsoul have a great outcome, but to all the other companies out there, this type of stuff has to stop. Like you guys need to have this flushed out before you just

[00:19:15] launch a product and then just blame it on a bad batch. Well, this is now the second time that I'm popping in here for another update in the last 24 hours, but we managed to source another Pickleball Apes Zen S Plus from Pickleball Blast. He's another reviewer in our area. And we ran some spin tests on the second unit and I'll leave a video link down below. If you want to watch the whole thing, you can see all the results. But long story short, ours is averaging somewhere

[00:19:41] between 1500, 1600 RPM. And then Bobby's with about five hours of use on it was averaging 2300 RPM very easily. So it just goes to confirm everything we said in this podcast episode, which is that a lot of these durable grits right now are having crazy quality control issues. We've now managed through multiple tests to back up and prove every paddle that we have had an issue with has actually had an issue. The Enhance, the Vsouls, and the Pickleball Apes Zen. There are

[00:20:11] people who are getting units that are fine and having a great experience. And then there are others who aren't. Got it. Well, let's move on to our main topic or one of our main topics this week, which is just grit, grit loss, durable grit, all the grits. Since we've come back, we've had issues with a couple paddles, right? So we had the Zen S Plus just was not getting good spin for us. That was both confirmed through just playing with it, as well as then running some RPM tests. But other people,

[00:20:38] like John, reran some tests and his is getting 2300. And we're going to talk all about why I think some of this is happening later. But like, when someone like John says that, I believe him. I do not think like, oh, John has fudged a number or something. Like, I believe he is getting good spin. John has been doing this just as long as us. He's he's smart. Like he knows what he's doing. He would be able to tell if a pal is getting bad spin, right? In fact, he texted me about one this

[00:21:03] week that he was like, this is not good spin. Paddle's not out yet. Then the Enhance, that was a big issue for us, right? We were like, hey, something's weird here. But then other people were like, there was two topics going on at the same time. There was how durable is it? John was like, this is tier four. But then our piece of the conversation was not about durability, but just this doesn't get good spin. Spin generation. So for us, it wasn't getting good spin. Some other people seemed like they experienced that. And then other people were like, well, this is as good

[00:21:31] as anything else. Like it spins fine to me. So people were confused, right? And then this week, we had the Vesal Tour, which I'll leave the video link down below if you want to watch it. We will cover it briefly. The long story short is Isaac played with one, probably about 50 to 75 games on it. I played with one, had four and a half to five hours on it, maybe about 30 games equivalent between drilling and real games. And then we tested another one and only drilled for one hour.

[00:21:57] And all of them dropped spin like a rock. Like very, very bad. And so there's a couple comments here or there that was like, I don't get it. Like, you know, other people didn't seem to be having these issues. Then you guys come back and you're having all these issues. Like, what's the deal here? So with the Zen, have no idea. We're actually getting another one today from Pickleball Blast in our local area. And we're going to test that and see if the spin is the same or not. So we're going to try and have more units to verify. And then Enhanced, they asked for their units back.

[00:22:26] And they're like, hey, can we just look at them and see if we can figure out what's wrong? The day they got them, they said, hey, you guys were right. That paddle was not spinning well. We figured out what the issue is. We're going to send you new units and we're going to delay the launch. So that's great. And then the Vsoul, let's talk about this. So I think there was a lot of confusion because when John ran tests on it, he was like, technically this is tier one. But I feel

[00:22:51] like a lot of people missed the massive disclaimer, which was this is an early result. More testing needs to be done. This did lose a lot of grit. It just didn't happen to lose spin. So I feel like everyone just heard tier one and was like, okay, guys, this paddle is really good. But there was not a lot of like real world testing has been done on this thing yet. So that's kind of where I feel like we came in and then had started to have issues. So I, you know, I've been talking to John a lot

[00:23:18] about all this grit stuff and just trying to figure out what's going on here. So John ran another test yesterday, which I guess by the time you're hearing this, it'll be two days ago. So Monday. And he was like, Hey, I retested on the cannon and the spin dropped a lot. Like it's very similar to what you experienced. So this means one of two things, either something was wrong the first time, which I doubt John is like very technical with all stuff, or there's an issue with batches of

[00:23:44] these paddles. But when three of ours has an issue and then John retests one and it drops a lot of RPM. Did he retest the same one that he had? No, a brand new one. Okay. So it was brand new. Yeah. Brand new. Yep. Not the same one. So maybe the first one he tested was just lucky. Yeah. Or maybe that one was good and that's what it's supposed to be. That's what I'm saying. Like it was a lucky unit that just happened to not have issues, but then four of the other ones do are three of ours. And then one of his. So,

[00:24:10] so I think basically what this whole conversation is going to turn into is that people really right now want to look at the different tests, Brayden's tests, the way we're doing it, the way John's doing it. And then other people who are just talking about real world gameplay and everyone really wants every test to line up perfectly. But like we said last week, these tests are not all the same there and they're testing different things. Some are more real world, some are more lab based

[00:24:39] and it would be awesome if in a perfect world, everything lined up awesome. But I just don't think that's going to happen. And so people need to take each one for what it's worth. Some, you can get an answer quicker. Some are going to be slower. Some are less accurate. Some are more accurate in different ways. Like it's not a one size fits all, unfortunately. Like it would be awesome. You just can't expect these tests to all line up the same with how different they all are. The amount

[00:25:06] of variables there are with how our test is in terms of aggregate off the court. Are we playing indoor outdoor, the person testing it? How consistent are you at hitting the same stroke or hitting the same spot on the paddle? You versus me. Uh, Brayden's test with it just spinning in one spot. The material is not the same as a pickleball John's test where literally nothing is, is moving. It's the exact same angle. It's hitting the same spot. It's much higher speed, no aggregate on the ball.

[00:25:36] Everything's clean. You just cannot expect all these things to give the same result. Yeah. It's just not possible. Yeah. So it's, it's really just take it for what it's worth to you. Use that information for what you will. And if you're a more science-based person, then you're probably going to lean towards John's test. If you're someone who doesn't care about any of that and just wants to go play, you might lean towards our test. Brayden's is kind of somewhere in the middle, maybe towards John's of like more lab testing. So you just got to figure out what,

[00:26:04] what do you lean towards? There's just a lot of things there. And I think on top of that, not only is there a potential variable within the test, but as we're seeing right now with the three paddles I just mentioned, the QC from the companies is another added variable. So enhance, right? Like let's take John, for example. He with the enhance had no issues with the paddle. He's like, mine seems to generate spin just fine. We did not. Who's right and who's wrong, right? In this context,

[00:26:33] there was no, he was right, he was wrong. We were both right. We got a bad one. He had one that was fine. So remember when gen two paddles were being made? Some of you, this is going to be before your time. Some of you, this is going to be a perfect story for you. When gen twos came out, I literally thought I was going crazy. We'll take the first paddle that made me think I was going crazy. The legacy pro when I was reviewing that paddle, I remember as I was using it, I would talk in discord and in different places. And I was like, this thing hits so hard. I was

[00:27:03] saying like, I literally can't control this. Like my drops are going to the moon. I'm getting crushed or I can nuke a drive. Right. And I remember calling pickleball will at one point and saying, dude, I think this hits harder than a diadem vice. And will was like, dude, you're crazy. That paddle does not hit harder than a diadem vice. And I'm like, well, I swear, like I'm playing with people and they're saying the vice is slower in my hand than the legacy pronies. Like, dude, that's insane. Guess what? No one was right or wrong. Wills wasn't core crushed. Ours was core

[00:27:32] crushed. Yep. And the variance in people's power experience came down to was their paddle broken or was it not broken? And I think the same thing with a new manufacturing technique is happening again with grit. These factories are learning to do something new. Some of it might be rushed. Some of it might not. And the consumers are dealing with the other side of it, which is like, well, mine's good, but yours isn't. And then it's like, well, who's right or wrong? Yeah.

[00:27:58] Yeah. Everyone's probably right. But it's also so difficult to base it off this for everyone because what I consider or what you consider good spin or maybe what we consider bad spin is what someone else might perceive as good spin to them. Yes. Like our preferences are going to be so different based on what your level is. And mechanics.

[00:28:23] Mechanics. I'm going to be so much pickier on spin just because of the way I play, the level I've gotten to, maybe how consistent I've gotten. I'm going to be able to find much smaller imperfections than someone who's new. Yeah. You know, or someone who just hits the ball flat. Yep. You know, so it's different for everybody. And that even applies. The interesting thing about that is you could have, let's say, a 3-5 that comes from tennis and maybe they're a 3-5 because they don't know how to dink or they don't

[00:28:52] know how to reset, but they actually can generate a lot of topspin because they came from tennis. Yeah, exactly. They have a great forehand and vice versa. You could have a 5-0 that hits very flat, but they're a 5-0 because maybe their court IQ is really good. Maybe they're just really good at resetting, but they don't have to hit everything with insane amounts of spin, right? Yep. So this applies all across the board. For sure. Some people will be more dependent on that spin than others. And I think that's a really

[00:29:20] important part of the conversation is just because, you know, a paddle, let's say I get 2,000 RPM on a paddle. And to me, maybe I'm like, okay, that's a little worse than some of these other ones. You might have another player that it doesn't matter because all the strokes they hit, they're never going to utilize that spin. So for them, they're like, yeah, it gets great spin because they don't have to go up to the maximum limit, right? And so I just, I think that adds a lot of confusion to the conversation because you'll see people online

[00:29:48] who say, I mean, this happened with the Viesel, people in my discord, there were people going, yeah, I agree with Chris. Like I don't have a lot of time on it and I'm already feeling it balding and I'm losing some, some spin. And then other people are like, well, but I've got 20 hours on mine and it feels brand new. So I threw the question in there and I said, okay, for everyone who feels like their paddle is fine, could you just throw out your level? Like, I'm just curious. It's not a, oh, well you're a low level. So you can't tell me you didn't, you don't have good grit. But if

[00:30:18] a 5-0 is telling me, hey, I am not wearing it down. And then a 3-0 saying the same thing, I'm like, okay, well now I'm kind of interested. But the people who mentioned it were, I think there was two or three people that responded. I think, or yeah, I think there was three. I think there was a 4-5 that was like, yeah, I'm losing some spin. And then there was a 2-5 and a 3-0 to 3-5. And those guys were like, I've got about 20 hours. I don't feel like I'm losing spin. Again, I don't think anyone is wrong or right there. I think at that level, you might not be wearing it

[00:30:45] down as much, right? Like if you think about longer points, let's take 5-0s for example. Their points on average are going to be longer. You will hit more balls in a given set of games. At 3-0 to 3-5, what would you say the average rally like this? Three to four shots? Four at the max. Maybe not the max, but on average, yes. Like four. So the game and the amount of like ball touches you're getting are also different. And the intensity at each level is different. So this is, I said this last week, I really believe

[00:31:14] that there are a lot of people who not only would be just fine with raw carbon fiber, but tier three and tier two, especially, they might not wear it down that quickly because that's just how they play. Yeah. So like, I feel like tier two, tier three, and tier four has kind of been this like kiss of death for paddles. Like, oh, it's not tier one. Don't buy it. But I really think there are a lot of people where it just wouldn't matter. Yeah. You know, like think a year ago, first of all,

[00:31:41] when I did chasing 5-0, almost every tournament I played, I'm pretty positive. I played with the same loco. I promise you by my third tournament, the spin was probably not that great. I was still able to play with it just fine, but that's what normal was. Yep. Tier one grit, long lasting grit really didn't exist. So it's like, if you could play good pickleball with a paddle last year with raw carbon fiber, you can probably still play good pickleball for a couple months with tier three

[00:32:06] grit. It is really funny how just once you add a label to it and different tiers, that's like the buzz thing. And that's what people gravitate towards. If it's not the top of the top tier one, I don't want it. Yep. It's like one of my favorite paddles right now. The Aura Pro. Yep. Doesn't even have a quote unquote, you know, durable grit texture. It's raw carbon. And I love it. I think

[00:32:36] it's great. And I would play with that over most of the durable textures on the market right now. So, but I think we need to, one thing we need to reposition like on that note, because, and I want to be very clear here. We are not saying durable grit is not important in an ideal world. Every paddle would have tier one grit. Yes. And I hope we get to that point. Yep. My question to you would be, obviously we're privileged. We get all these paddles for free. If you want more Friday Aura Pros, you could probably go get more if you just asked for them,

[00:33:03] right? You're buying your own paddles. You're going to go play tournaments. Think of any of the durable grit options you have right now. And then Friday Aura Pro. Would you still choose to buy the Friday Aura Pro or would you lean towards a durable grit option? And then maybe my second follow-up question would be, you'd probably be willing to use a used Friday Aura Pro longer if you're going to buy that yourself than if you were getting them for free, right? Yeah, for sure.

[00:33:28] And it depends on the scenario of, am I going to be a rec player that just goes out and plays games? Well, we're talking you specifically here. Yes. I'm saying about me. Okay. Or if I'm in the mode of I'm going out playing qualies week in, week out, and I need the best performing paddle possible. Because if that's the case, then I'm buying an Aura Pro. Okay. Like I, that's my preference.

[00:33:55] That's what I play best with. I know I'm going to compete at my peak with that paddle. Then yeah, I'm shelling out the money for it. But if I'm just going out, drilling, playing, playing with my friends, setting up a couple, you know, sessions two, three times a week, then yeah, I'll probably take, you know, like a blue grit or, or some hex grit or something like that. Because that'll go

[00:34:17] ahead. I, because I just don't think my max performative level matters as much in that scenario. It's funny. I thought the answers would be flipped purely because obviously if you're for qualifiers, you're going to have to spend more money to keep like cycling the paddles as they, they wear out. Yep. So I was almost expecting a flip like, okay, I'll just get used to a longer lasting grip paddle because it'll just last me longer and I'll spend less money. And then for wreck, who cares if it

[00:34:45] loses some spin? It's, it's wreck. No other way around. I care more about like, I need max performance for those games because those games actually matter. Wreck games, I could lose a hundred of them. Who cares? It doesn't matter. Yeah. Wally games matter way more. If I'm spending money, I need to win those games. So I need what paddle I think I'm going to play my very best with. I don't want to have to think, was it the paddle? Yeah. I just want to think, I know I play well with this paddle and that's, that's that. And I think, you know, all the people who are listening

[00:35:12] to this podcast, you really need to assess, okay, what, what are your goals in pickleball? Are you playing a lot of tournaments? Are you playing wreck? And how much does spin actually matter to you? Yes. In an ideal world, we'd all have tier one grit, but like for some of you, there's probably a paddle you would love the feel of and get over not having a durable grit to have that feel. But then there are some of you who are like, no, I spin is my thing. I need that to last. And I don't

[00:35:40] want to spend a lot of money replacing paddles. So just know who you are, right? Like everyone a year ago was fine with, well, I say fine with raw carbon fiber. People were displeased, but it was the only option. Yeah. So you got used to it. Yep. And don't get me wrong. If I could just take like Honolulu's blue grit or hex grit or the P1 grit, I'd throw that on an Oral Pro all day. I'd love that. Yeah. But that's not the case. So yeah, I still would much prefer to have a durable

[00:36:09] grit that lasts and I don't have to replace a paddle, but I just don't think it's the most important thing in the world based on if you have a, cause I would rather play with a paddle. I know I like then force myself to get some used to something that you don't love. I don't love like, okay, the J6 think the grit's awesome. Not in love with the shape of the paddle or exactly how it

[00:36:34] plays. So yeah, I'd much rather play with a Friday or a pro than the J6. Yep. Yeah. I think that makes, I think that makes sense. Um, yeah, so I still got some other stuff to go over here, but I think one of the other things that's interesting about a lot of these newer durable grits, I wouldn't say a lot, but in a handful of contexts now, somehow we are literally making grit worse than raw carbon fiber.

[00:37:02] That's the crazy thing. For one of two things, either durability, our V-Soles personally were worse than what I have seen with raw carbon fiber. It's almost felt like it was like spray on grit, uh, with how fast it was coming off. Yeah. And then the other side of it is performance. So I feel like there's two things to look at here. There's performance and there's durability. Some companies are failing on durability, but then sometimes they're also failing on actually making the spin output good. Yeah. Because let's, let's take this for example. This is

[00:37:31] really hard to say. We kind of have to theorize here. What is the, if a paddle could have tier one grit, but the spin had to be a little bit lower than raw carbon fiber, what is the bare minimum you would go to where you go? Okay. I would still play with that tier one grit. Like I would choose to use that. And then what's the cutoff where you're like, I won't, even though it lasts, I don't want that based on the testing we've done and just knowing how the numbers work for us and how we hit the

[00:38:00] ball. My minimum can't 2000. That's what I was going to 2000 and anything lower than 2000, like my used raw carbon fiber paddles where I'm like, okay, I need to replace this is like 1900 at its best and like 1750 on average, maybe where it gets low. Cause I'm guessing your aura pro

[00:38:27] is probably near 1700 of those probably getting, getting there. Yeah. Actually I'd be curious to test that and see what that's at. Yeah. Um, and that's where I'm like, okay, I need a new paddle. So if it started there, but lasted forever again, it goes into the thing of it. I could just get used to it and I wouldn't know any better until I hit something side by side with it. But in the back of my mind, I know that that will cost me some in or out drives. Yeah. A difference of 1750 to 2300 is

[00:38:55] literally the difference between hitting a ball three feet in or three feet out. I'm actually glad you brought that up. I'll just cut in really quick on the Vatic video. Some people were like it, but it looks like you're serving slower on the used one. And I, I should, this is on me. I should have said this in the video and explained it better, but it's because you have to with how much spin the paddles lost. If I served at the same speed, I actually, cause this is another thing I didn't

[00:39:21] explain about my test when I'm doing an RPM test, the ball has to land in the court. Yeah. I, you know, I'm not trying to hit the back fence. I'm like trying to keep it real world. Like this is a serve I'm hitting in a real game. If I hit them at the same exact speed in the same exact paddle angle, it's either going in the bottom of the net or five feet past the baseline. Correct. So I have to slow down and modify my mechanic because without that grit, the ball just slips.

[00:39:46] We didn't record the drill session with the Zen at lifetime. Did we know? Dang. Cause we should have my serves. I mean, you can say my serves with the Zen versus with the mark, the mark night and insane. Yeah. Not only like, okay. And we can all agree. Zen is one of the hardest hitting paddles we've used in recent times. Right. But I bet you would say that my serve with the mark was coming

[00:40:12] in much faster. Agreed. Now to be fair though, that is also a very hard hitting paddle. Yeah, for sure. It's not like we went down to like an aura level, both power paddles. Yeah. But I think we'd both agree the Zen hits harder and my serve with the mark was faster. Agreed. Because I can keep that ball in with the spin it gives me versus with the mark. I could slap it and probably hit it faster top speed, but it's not staying in the court. Maybe one out of 10, I could get to stay

[00:40:38] in the court, but not consistently. Yeah. So when spin goes down, you have to change how you hit the ball to be able to hit a legal serve. What I should have done probably is literally kept every single mechanic, the exact same just to show, look, every one of these is going in the net or going out. It's just so hard to like, okay, you and I would know that we're not changing anything with how we hit the ball, but then people will always speculate. Oh, well, you're trying to make it look worse. Yeah. You're purposely hitting in the bottom of that because it's so fast. You can't

[00:41:07] tell that you're not changing anything. Correct. So there will always be people that are speculative. Yeah. I just wanted to bring that up just so people had context. Oh yeah. It's, you know, for sure. That's why it has to be that way. A hundred percent. But yeah, back to the whole, you know, brands producing worse grit. Like I think it's an interesting time where in some context, brands are like making things performatively worse. Yes. Now the people who are at the top,

[00:41:33] like I would say the main companies that seem to have done a really good job so far, 11, 624, Honolulu, but consumers do complain about inconsistencies. So I would almost like put that a tier below because who knows what the heck you're getting. And then six zero with the UPAA diamond tough. That one seems to be a home run. And then, uh, Spartus is permacrit outside of that. Everyone is like a noticeable tier below in either performance for spin got worse or durability did

[00:42:00] not hold up, which just doesn't make sense in my mind. Again, let's just take enhance. That was an unfortunate mishap. They clearly the ones they were testing were good. We got a bad batch that happens. But with these other ones, I'm wondering, are these companies not testing this? Surely they're doing tests. A hundred percent. So how is things like the Vatics ever grit just wearing down within

[00:42:24] one drill session and not holding up or generating good spin or say the Zen surely apes tested that. Again, we'll see later today if the one we get is better. I just, I don't know how these things are, are slipping through. And on that note, uh, one other thing is there is a paddle. I won't say its name for now because it sounds like they're trying to fix it, but there is a paddle that a lot of

[00:42:49] reviewers just got. Yep. And we just got an email that said, hang on, we're going to push the launch back. Cause it sounds like some of the units you guys got are getting really bad spin. So now let's say again, some people got one that was pretty good and others got one that was bad. People would have probably then gone like, let's say we got a bad one and John got another good one. Let's just say it happened that way. What it would have turned into is like, now you guys have four, like you

[00:43:15] guys got to be doing this on purpose. You got it. You just want to say that companies are getting bad spin. But again, it was a QC thing. Thankfully this time the company caught it before we were all allowed to talk about it. But imagine how confusing that would have gotten when it seems to consistently be coming back to these new grits and how they're being manufactured. The company, the factory is screwing something up. And for those that don't know with, with Chinese manufacturing, they, all they care about

[00:43:44] is pumping out units as fast as possible and, and make as much money as they can. So if let's say you go to China and you develop a paddle, you have come up with the glues being used, the plastic of the edge guard, the face layering, the foam, the foam in the core, all these different things. You've got it. You've got it down. You give them that blueprint. You go back home and they make a batch of 500

[00:44:12] paddles. Those ones perfect. All to spec. Oh shoot. We ran out of, I'm just going to make up a random number. A dash zero two five glue. Oh, we ran out. Now we've got a dash zero two six glue close enough. It's close. Yeah. It's, they'll just start using it, but it's way different than what you have in the spec sheet that you came up with. And now everything is off. Yeah. Disbonding issues. Edge guards are coming loose. Like, and they don't tell you that they just start using it and say,

[00:44:40] yeah, it's fine. It's cheaper. Yeah. It's cheaper. So they, they're still pumping out units and charging you. They got paid either way. Exactly. But now all of a sudden consumers are having tons of issues with this stuff. That's how Chinese manufacturing works. Yeah. And that stuff happens on a daily basis. Yep. And so we can't control that. We don't know if we're getting the right glue in our paddles. And I've heard this from numerous companies. It's not just one, it's all of them. It just happens. So if you are not a person from a company in China at the factory monitoring

[00:45:10] them daily, they will try and cut corners. It's just what happens. Yep. Yep. Yep. We've, I mean, I've heard that from so many companies, people who have traveling to China, watching them, you know, like hold, heard a whole lot of stories about that. So I really think with this whole grit thing, I mean, I'm sure there are some companies who are rushing because that is the thing right now. Right? Like if, if, if you release a raw carbon fiber paddle, yeah, it's probably going to receive a

[00:45:38] lot of dings because grit is the main thing. Like it's like, if you have companies like 11, 624 and like the power to let's say with really durable grit, and then someone releases a comparable paddle, but with raw carbon fiber, everyone's going to go, well, why wouldn't you choose the comparable one with a long lasting grit? Right? So I understand why the conversation has become so much about this. I just think there are a lot of consumers where it wouldn't matter if they had it or didn't

[00:46:06] have it. And I've even been going through this recently. We bought a new camera recently. We have been messing with it, trying to decide if we want to keep it or not. And there were two cameras, actually three that it was very torn between. They're all very similar, but some minor differences. Realistically, we could shoot with any of those cameras and be fine. But I was like watching dozens and dozens and dozens of reviews being like, okay, well, he said this, he said, like, he's got a good point. Maybe I do care about that. And then sometimes you get a camera and you're using, you're like,

[00:46:34] I don't care about that thing that I thought it was. Or you just never even used one of the features that you're, you're thinking you were going to. I mean, that happened with my car. Now I have a 2013 Honda Accord. I wasn't choosing between two specific models this way or another, but mine happens to have a sunroof. And I was like, Ooh, that's right. I'm really glad I have the sunroof. I'm going to use that all the time. You know how many times I've used that sunroof? Probably knowing you probably never, pretty much never. I maybe did it one time just so I could say I used it. I thought I was going to care a lot about that. It's so funny. Different people.

[00:47:02] Yeah. I have a 2014 Honda Civic with a sunroof and I use that thing daily. Yeah. I love it. So it just different people have different preferences. Yeah. So I don't know. I hope companies will slow down. First of all, maybe slow down a little bit, but also just, you need to keep a better leash on your factory because totally agree. But think if you were in the position of making paddles,

[00:47:28] which I get is very difficult right now. You are very pressured to come out with a new grit because that is the popular thing to do. But if you fail, it will tank the release of your paddle. Yep. You lose tons of money because now what do you do with this entire inventory of paddles that is bad? Or if you say you try to do it the other way, you don't know if it's going to be good. You do a small batch of many 500 paddles, sells out instantly. It's really great. And now everyone's yelling at

[00:47:54] you because you don't have enough. And now it's going to take another 30 days or whatever to get new paddles. You deal with pre-orders. So it's like, what do you, what do you do? It's a lose-lose. I think I, that, yeah, I think all of that is a very interesting point. I think for mine, I'm wondering how much is the grit is actually just bad and the idea doesn't work. How much of it is a batch thing? Let's give enhanced credit or like give them, assume that it is a batch thing. Let's just say that's the case, right? Like, okay, glad they caught it. Could have been

[00:48:23] a big disaster. Well, then you got to figure out something so that across a mass batch, that doesn't ever happen again. Right. Cause now let's say we get a good one. Maybe they're going to be a little bit more careful to be like, okay, we got to check theirs before we send it to them. Make sure they get a good one. What's to say you watch our video. You know, we have a good one. Now you buy one and you get a bad one. We can't control how future batches end up being. Yeah. As a whole, I mean, I just have a list of paddles here so far.

[00:48:49] Some, I'm basing a lot of these more off of, uh, for John's testing. Cause we haven't tested every single one of these, but the number of companies that have attempted durable grit and the number that have actually succeeded is a very different. There's about four that have succeeded three to four that have kind of done well. And the duds, let's just read some of them off. Aereo, Luz, uh, pickleball apes, the Vatic Pro Viesel, engage, uh, Selkirk's and Finaigret. Uh, the chorus coda was like, I wouldn't say bad, but it was kind of mixed. I think thrive ignite,

[00:49:19] and Packle. Packle, Packle, actually, I can't believe I forgot to mention this earlier when I was talking about batch to batch variants. Packle, we haven't talked about this paddle. And some people have been like, why haven't you talked about it? So I got the paddles while I was on break. I didn't hit them cause I couldn't hit. Then I started seeing in my discord. Okay. Hey, wait, the first batch was really good, but then the second batch was really bad and consumers had to like, they were getting, you know, 60% off the next batch. If you buy it. And now the third

[00:49:46] batch is fine. That is another example. Add four to the list now of people could have very wildly different experiences because of a batch issue. It doesn't mean someone's test was broken or playing in the real world. Their mechanic is so bad. It's like, you just didn't know what you were going to get. You know, a year ago, bad batches was a thing and we've talked about it, but I feel like it's never been as prevalent as it is now. It's way bigger of a problem with grit

[00:50:12] for bad batches than it's ever been. Think about spin. There's been spin tests since 2021. When I got into it, John does them, Brayden does them handful of people do them. I would say I could probably count on one hand before durable grit, the amount of times that all three of us disagreed on whether a paddle got good spin or bad spin, forget durability, just whether it spun the ball well. Now, all of a sudden, when there's new manufacturing

[00:50:39] techniques and grit is the topic, suddenly there is debate about, oh, I'm getting good spin. I'm not getting good spin. What's the only thing that changed? Manufacturing techniques of these new grits. Yeah. Like that's crazy to me. 100%. So yeah, I don't know. I just, I'm glad we have durable grits, but I am at the point now where I think any durable grit that comes out, unless you were going to buy that paddle and be happy with it,

[00:51:04] if it was tier four grit, I'd tell everyone to not buy a durable grit paddle until you see it confirmed multiple times through real world lab, whatever you want that it held up. But if a company comes out and claims a durable grit, I would not believe any of them. For sure. Yeah. It's such a, it's such an empty claim right now that it's just a popular thing to do. Every company is going to say, oh, our giga stardust moon grit is better than everyone else's.

[00:51:31] But, and they could even be right in what they tested. But if then a bad batch comes out, it's like, well, what? That doesn't do me any good. Yep. Okay. So theoretical here, if you were a company, would you either rush out one as quick as possible and just hope it's good and works or wait longer, confirm that it's good, but now everyone's going to complain that it's late or do what Valer did and, and license it from another company that, you know, it's good.

[00:51:59] Yeah. I mean, we're going to talk more about that later when we get to the command, but I mean, if you, if it's an option, I, at this point I would just license hex grid saves you a lot of time and headache, saves your reputation potentially. It saves you a lot of trouble, but I don't think there's anything wrong with being late. As long as you have a decent paddle, right? Like I, there are definitely non-durable grit paddles that are still selling, right? I'm sure it's been impacted a lot by durable grit, but I, if it's my company, I would so much rather be

[00:52:27] late to the party and have done it right. Then gamble my reputation on, I don't know, it might be good. Let's just see you guys tell us if licensing, it wasn't an option. Then that's what I would do too. Yeah. Just wait, just confirm that it's good because the headache of having to deal with angry customers who bought things do refunds or weird discounts on newer versions, and then sitting on inventory that you can't really do anything with. It just all sounds like a, a headache if I was a company owner. Yep. I wouldn't want to deal with that.

[00:52:57] And now I have an analogy, maybe two analogies. Uh, the credit to a guy in my discord, I think his name was stank. I was like, this is a really good analogy. I was like, I'm going to use that. Basically he had this analogy when talking about some of these grits is that a lot of it is like buying a TV at a store. If any of you have ever gone to like a best buy or something and looked at the wall of TVs and you're like, well, which one looks better? Okay. So you're looking at like 20 TVs and you're like, okay, I like the saturation of that one,

[00:53:24] but maybe the image is more crisp on this one, but I like the size of this one. And you're like, I I'm so overwhelmed. Which one do I pick? I don't know. But then if you just took, if you didn't have all those comparisons and you took one off the shelf, there is a very, very high probability that you would go home and be extremely content with that TV. The only point where you are now discontent with it is because you have the option of comparison. And now sometimes that comparison matters, right? It can help you. Maybe you value

[00:53:54] image quality more than you value the size of the TV, right? So I'm not saying comparison is bad, but again, it comes down to knowing you as a person and what's important. Yeah. If you're someone who hits the ball flat, you don't need the highest RPM. So you hear a reviewer go, well, we got bad spin. You might not, it might not even matter to you because of how you hit the ball. Right. Right. So like it's, you have all these options. You're hearing these reviewers talk about all these things and you don't know what's more important, but what you need to know is matters to you and how

[00:54:24] you play. And if you've played multiple paddles and noticed a paddle got bad spin and it really impacted you, well, boom, now, you know, it matters to you. But for some of you, like there are definitely people out there blaming the grid of their paddle. And I'm like, bro, I saw how you hit that ball. I mean, you and I have had this, you know, everyone looks at their paddle and you're like, bro, you shanked that ball off the bottom of the edge guard. You weren't getting spin there no matter how much grit was on that paddle. Yeah. You know, a hundred percent.

[00:54:49] So you and I, we, we've been doing this for so long that we're also hypersensitive to some of these changes that other people might not perceive as easily. Okay. But then we also are so used to brand new paddles and how they spin that when a paddle is losing spin, it's way more obvious to us. If your only reference point is one paddle that you have been using for a month, it's like a frog in boiling water. Like it's going to be very slow and you're not going to

[00:55:17] notice the change immediately, but then you put a new one in your hand after two months and you're going to go, Oh my gosh, I, this gets way more spin. Yeah. But without that, you might be completely fine. So I just, it's such a hard thing. Cause on one hand, I'm like, yes, I want, you want companies to make better durable grits and not keep making raw carbon fiber. But on the other hand, I'm like, there's a lot of you where it just doesn't matter. Right. It just doesn't matter.

[00:55:43] In an ideal world, everyone's paddle has the best spin. It lasts forever. And that's great. Just not the case right now. And it's, it's not the most important thing in pickleball. I agree. I agree. So someday we'll get there. Yeah. Maybe next year, maybe next year. So it's like core crushing. How many years did it take for gen twos to like stop blowing up? It was like two or three years. Yeah. You know, even, even I'll give credit, even gen threes, I think right now are in a way healthier spot than they were two years ago, three years ago,

[00:56:11] you know, whenever the original gen three launched, like they still break, they are going to break, but they don't break at the same rate they used to, you know? So it's like, okay, that's probably what's going to happen with grit too. Yeah, for sure. Okay. We spent a lot of time on that. Uh, let's talk about some, some actual paddles now. Seriously. All right. First one. Flair command hybrid. We'll start with this since we mentioned hex grit, they are using hex grit on this paddle. So boom, right at the gate, you probably already know what's going to be good

[00:56:40] because there's not a more well-documented grit than hex grit right now. Yeah. Um, I'll read off a couple of bits of info. Then we can talk about how we played with it. So it'll be one 79, nine, one 79, 99 before a discount code pre-order window opens on the 18th at 11 AM CST. And then it's not going to ship until like 10, 15. Now, if history will tell us anything, a lot of times when companies have done pre-orders, those pre-order windows end up being late. So if

[00:57:09] you're going to pre-order this, just know that first of all, you're waiting a month from the day you pre-order it till about the day it comes out. And if there's a delay, it could be even longer. I'm personally don't love the whole pre-order thing. I get why it exists. Other companies, non pickleball do it too. So it's fine. But I'm just saying, keep that in mind. You might be waiting a while and there's going to be a lot of pad like the Jade. I mean, that is technically a pre-order. So who knows how long it's going to take, but just know that there are paddles like that that are probably going to be very good. So keep that in mind. Um, okay. So there's that,

[00:57:39] um, stats. I'm only really going to talk about the swing weight. Um, we put weight on ours and that bumped it up. These are five grams slice sliders, uh, you know, a little above center that bumped it to about one 19 stock. It seems like it ranges from about one Oh nine to one 11 and it only comes in a hybrid right now. They are very light stock. They're very light. And I actually don't know if I can say this or not. So I won't, I won't say that just to be safe, but, um, they are light

[00:58:06] out of the box. So just know that if you're someone like there's probably going to be some customization needed with this. If you like light paddles, great changes quite drastically with weight. Yeah. Think like how the, the Quanta or the, the Vesal pro was those changed quite a bit with weight. Oh, sure. Yep. So, okay. Uh, I guess you can go first if you want. Yeah. Uh, without weight, um, very low balance point, very low swing weight. Uh, obviously I feel like I could,

[00:58:36] I can hit anything hard. Like I could hit when we tested it without weight. I'm sure my drives felt plenty fast, but once you add weight changes quite a bit, I wouldn't have really put it in a power paddle category without weight. So even just this amount of weight on there firmly in a power, power category, it is a power paddle hits quite hard. Obviously hex grit, totally fine. Spins great, just like the other ones. Um, so no complaints there, not in love with the shape. It's fine.

[00:59:05] Yeah. Just cause you use elongated, just used to elongated again. I played totally fine with it. Um, I, I didn't really have any complaints. The sweet spot was fine. Um, hands felt really good. I'm, I really was struggling to find anything that I disliked about the paddle. Like if I had to play with it, I'd be totally, totally fine with it. Yeah. I think for me, there was a handful of things. I want, I really, I like how the feel of the paddle is. Uh, I think there have been,

[00:59:33] you know, stiff and hollow, I would say is probably widely the most popular area that a paddle occupies right now, especially a lot of foam paddles. And I think there's more that are shifting soft hollow. Some of the super thonky paddles are, are kind of more in that category. I would place it for me, probably a little closer to soft hollow, but it's like between soft and hollow and stiff and hollow. Definitely wasn't stiff. Yeah. I wouldn't call it a stiff paddle, but it's not super plush,

[01:00:00] like an inferno. Yes. To me, it's not as stiff as like a power two, but then, you know, like you said, with like an inferno, it's not quite that soft. Yeah. So I actually really liked the spot it occupies, like just how it felt hitting balls. I was like, Ooh, the feedback I'm getting in my hand. I like that. And I like it a lot more than where the shift was. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I think it feels a lot better. Take this over a shift any day. Yeah. Just the 14 millimeter

[01:00:27] foam paddles versus 16 millimeter foam paddles. It's not even close. Yeah. The 16s just always end up being better. I have not ever played with a 14 millimeter foam pedal that I thought was better than a 16 in recent times. Yeah. Way, way back. I actually thought that the true foam wasn't bad. But that was also the only one. But that we didn't have many other options. Now. Actually, I guess if you compare it, there was a 16, but it was like the blue corn, the 008 and those just suck. Those were just so the Genesis 14 was better than those. Yeah. Those,

[01:00:55] those pedals are trash, but no, I think moving to 16 was the right move. Uh, I would say, I agree with you. I think it's, it's not stiff. It's a little, the way I like to describe it is, is I've said this before it's quick response versus slow response, really slow response. The soft donkey paddles, like, uh, the inferno and then much quicker response, kind of like a boom stick. This is kind of in between it's, it's leaning on that quicker response. Right. As you hit it,

[01:01:25] it has a fast rebound to the paddle and it's very satisfying for me too. Like I know a big thing when the shift came out, they, they were kind of talking about like max deflection, the most pocketing. I have no idea where this one sits, but I personally feel like hitting it. Like immediately I was like, Oh, I like how this just feels like it sinks into the, the face of the paddle. And it probably a lot of that has to do with it feeling softer. Like I think softer paddles,

[01:01:50] whether it's true or not give you that perception more. And to me, it just feels like it sits on the face longer with the, the command than like a shift or some of the other paddles. So feel knocked it out of the park. The only qualm so far that I have with it, maybe two, but I think with more playtime, I'll kind of figure this out. So first in stock form, I'm going to say that I think this needs weight unless you really like light paddles. Totally agree. It's not as bad as the shift was.

[01:02:18] I think it's an upgrade from that, but I think if you compare it, let me just look at the wall. If you compare it to a loco, if you compare it to a V-Soul Tour, if you compare it to an MPP or an EPP Turbo, if you compare it to an RPM Q2, like most of these paddles that have good sweet spots, I think this is a step below that for sure in stock form. Oh yeah. For sure. Without weight. I need different weight setups. I don't think what I did is probably what I would land on.

[01:02:44] So maybe I'll need a little bit more time. It was much improved with the weight, but I would probably change it to be a little more specific to me than how I have it right now. So the sweet spot stock, I'm like, it could definitely be better. Wouldn't say it's the best thing out there. And then my first couple games with it, I found that there was like an inconsistency where sometimes I felt like I would hit a counter and I was like, wow, that went like a lot further than I was expecting.

[01:03:11] And then other times it just didn't go like as fast as I expected. So that could be the sweet spot. Maybe I was just hitting outside the sweet spot and I was just losing a lot of power. And the drop off from the sweet spot is steeper than other paddles maybe. But I just noticed, I was like, hmm, I'm like having a hard time dialing in a couple of these shots, mostly around like a reset or some stuff at the kitchen, like counters. But otherwise from the baseline, I wasn't really having

[01:03:40] any issues. But yeah, resets, like even a couple today, I was just like, hmm, caught that a little closer to the tip. Didn't really love how that felt. Obviously not an ideal spot to hit, but I feel like some of those other paddles, like, I don't know, the Loco, I was never complaining about sweet spot. I feel like the Loco has a really good sweet spot, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I would, I would agree with everything, everything you just said there. Yeah. But otherwise, like I think there's some, I could see this paddle being pretty popular. It's a little early to say, like, I want more real world play

[01:04:09] test on it. But it is one that I would say out of the box impressed me quite a bit, especially due to the feel. Now I think it's just going to come down to, can I find a weight setup that gets rid of some of these sweet spot issues that I was feeling? And if I can, then boom, this thing's going to be awesome. Yeah. Maybe after the pod, there's a, I want to try a sweet spot or not sweet spot, a weight setup, go outside and hit for a second. I might have an idea. Okay. Yeah. So, and you know,

[01:04:39] after a code, it'll be like one 60. So compared to like a power two, you could get it a little bit cheaper and it's a very different feel profile. Some people are going to much prefer a power two. Some would love this. Like, you know, I feel like when the power two came out myself included, I even said this, I was like, there's just something about how it feels where for me, I am more disconnected from it than what I would prefer. Can I play with it? Absolutely. I could probably even get used to it and be fine, but I wasn't in love with how it felt for that group of

[01:05:09] the command hybrid might be what you were looking for. Yeah. You know, I think they're different enough. It'll be nice now that like, okay, say you wanted hex grit, but you didn't love any of the 11, six 24 paddles, or maybe any of the shapes they offer. It would be nice now that there's different feel profile and going to be different shape options. It's just unfortunate for me that it was Valera that decided to license it because they don't make the elongated shape. I like,

[01:05:34] why cannot we not get a company that makes the one I prefer? I already know what 90% of people prefer. I already know what Justin's going to say to you though, because he's been saying it in the discord. Let me see. I need to find one on the wall. Do you see a flat top hybrid on the wall right now? Actually, it might be one over here. I don't see one on the wall. One of these two. Okay. He's, he's been taking pictures in discord and every time someone's like, I want a flat top

[01:06:00] hybrid. He's like, bro, look, they're the same. Cause I mean, look, if you look at this visually, no, but I'm not, I didn't say hybrid said elongated, but I see what you're saying. I get what you're saying. Yeah. But like, hang on, go grab, go grab that shift off the wall. I have an elongated. I think this is an elongated. I will say this is like one of the least curved

[01:06:25] elongated, you know, tops of any of the, the paddles. So I probably would be fine with it. But at this point it has come down to a like, and I get maybe has zero, especially on the shift. It's so subtle that realistically it probably does have zero performative effect on me, but what it does have is a mental effect. Okay. And that is just as real for people as a physical difference. Well, I'm glad you said it that way because I feel like, I feel like there'd be a lot of people who

[01:06:55] would die on a hill and be like, no, I swear I know. And maybe they're even right. But mental, if you're thinking about it, it's going to bother you. Well, think about it this way. Nadal with his tennis racket was so picky that they changed the type of paint they used. And he said he noticed a difference and he forced them to go back to the other. Well, what, no, what's funny. I think if I recall that story correctly is he started complaining about the rackets to

[01:07:21] Babylon and they were like, nothing changed. Like that's yes, nothing happened. And they were like, Rafa, we swear we didn't change anything. And then they realized that like a paint manufacturer or something with the paint changed. Yep. And then when they went back, they were like, oh, he was right. Yeah. You know, so that is a great example though. So like, okay, I get that, especially with the Valer elongated shape, realistically, probably almost 0% different.

[01:07:48] Yeah. But up here, it's enough of a difference for me that it's 80% difference up in your head. Exactly. Exactly. That's not a hill that I'm going to die on. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So, uh, yeah, I would say early impression of the command hybrid, very positive. Only hesitation is the, the sweet spot a little bit. Um, it's nice that we have at least another option with a top performing grit that you can be confident. It will, it will be good for once. I can like talk about a paddle and be

[01:08:16] like, I already know it gets good spin. I've already, I mean, in the Vatic video, I talked about it. I showed some examples. It's like, thank you. You made my life so much easier. Just imagine somehow because of it being a different core, it performs worse. Yeah. Worse or it's some, something broken. That's like my, everyone's life is a lie. Dude. Seriously. Okay. Next battle. Let's talk about moving on the six zero Boulder Opal. So I don't know. Let's rewind about a year. So I went to China last year with John

[01:08:46] Brayden, uh, and that gang to see six zeros factory, uh, made a video on my channel. We got to hit a number of prototypes while we were there. And if I recall, there was two prototypes specifically that we got to hit. And basically the Boulder Opal was one of them. And then the other one, I think if I'm remembering correctly is what the Opal became. So Boulder Opal, regular Opal.

[01:09:10] When I was there, I loved the Boulder Opal. Like I, even after we left the factory, I got to take a prototype home and I basically played with that Boulder Opal the entire time. And I was loving it. The only other paddle at the time that I had with me was the J2 NF. And if you'll recall that time last year, they were the only company that started doing a full floating ring. That's like when foam

[01:09:37] paddles started to really like, they were solid, but maybe not better than honeycomb. Once we got the full rings, that's when foam performance like went through the roof. So I loved it. I was like, and also I had a really gritty one. It was like UPA style grid. So obviously that helped just in terms of shaping the ball. Like I felt like I could bend the ball really well. So I played with it the entire trip and I was like, this is what you release. Like release this as soon as possible.

[01:10:02] I, I feel like I said that multiple times. This is the one you should release. And then for whatever reason, they released the regular Black Opal and we all know how the regular Black Opal turned out for most people. Yep. And I, I feel like I even said like, cause they were torn. They were like, oh, well we could do the Black Opal or we, we could do the, the Boulder Opal. And I, I feel like I said, do this one. This one will do well in the market, but you have to do it soon because I think the

[01:10:31] competition's about to be really good. And this was before, if I recall correctly, I knew about a Loco did, uh, let me think, had we have, we would have hit a boomstick at that point, but we didn't know when it was coming out. We didn't know it was coming out that year. Yes. So at the time I was like, this is awesome, but they waited a year to release it. And now I think the competition is just too stiff because look at the wall. You have a Luz Inferno. You have the Loco, you have the Vesal Pro, you have the Friday Aura Pro,

[01:11:00] you have the Boomstick, you have the Q2, the Quanta Pro. Well, I was going to say after hitting it today, I think, yeah, performs well. I think it's not bad. There's a couple of things I don't love about it in a vacuum. I would take this over a Black Opal. I agree. For sure. A hundred percent. But now every paddle you just listed on the wall, I would drop this for those. Yes. I completely agree. I like, I think this is a, to me, there's going to be a little bit of preference in this. I think this is a better Black Opal in

[01:11:29] basically every single regard, unless your only objective was max power. I think the regular Black Opal hits harder, but I think the feel off of this is better. I think the sweet spot is a little bit better, but still underperforms some of the top paddles right now. Yep. And the other thing too, I did mention this to them last year because I got to see the shark skin grit and I got to see Diamond Tough. And I remember being like, I don't know that you should release

[01:11:56] both of these because I was like, do they perform the same? And I can't remember what the answer was at the time. But basically I was like, I think if you release both, people are going to be confused because if you have one durable grit texture, that's really good. Why would you release a second one? Because then it's like, well, you already had a good one. Why don't you just use that? And now I think I do remember them saying they can feel a little bit different. So, okay, credit there. But I still think that's going to make a consumer look at your website and go,

[01:12:23] which one do you believe in more? Or do you not believe in either of them? And that's why you have two. Right. And I think what makes the Boulder Opal feel even a little bit more confusing is 6-0 just hit a massive home run with the Coral Pro with the UPA Diamond Tough. I'll tell you, I have seen zero Opals in the wild, but I have seen plenty of Corals and Coral Pros. The Coral and Coral Pro, in my opinion, is 6-0's the child they should be like- The chosen one for 6-0.

[01:12:53] Yes. They should be doubling down on that style of paddle, take that, find ways to increase power. Like I think paddles like the Boulder Opal and Black Opal are for a much more niche group of people. It's way too polarizing of a feel. Yes. For the masses. Yes. Where the Coral and Coral Pro is just much more easily adopted by people when transitioning from anything else on the market. Yeah.

[01:13:19] If you're coming from, let's just say something extreme, you've been on, still on a Gen 2 or a Gen 3 and you are either choosing between going, and you want a foam paddle, you're choosing between a Loco or a Black Opal or a Boulder Opal, it is going to be infinitely easier to use the, or I would also say most people would probably pick the Loco over the Opals because it's just a smoother transition. I agree.

[01:13:48] Where this is so different that it's probably going to be pretty jarring of a feel the second you hit it. Yep. Yep. In multiple ways, where again, 14 millimeter only comes a 14 millimeter. It's a more flexy neck. It is super flexible. You can grab the handle on top of the paddle and literally twist it. I can feel it twisting. And when you hit a ball, you feel it flex quite a bit. And which is a thing that some people love. Some people do. Or you hate it. Yes.

[01:14:14] Some people love it, but I would say majority of people would rather not have that flex. Correct. I mean, look, the Coral Pro doesn't have that and it's probably their most popular paddle. 100%. Sweet spot, definitely not as good. So you either have to be a much better player or just maybe not care. And again, less people in that camp. So overall, there will just be less people that like this paddle. Again, I'm not saying it's bad. Yeah. I think you can play great pickleball with it.

[01:14:41] But it hits super hard, but there are just things about it that I know I won't play as well with it. And I just wasn't a huge fan. Yeah. And I think, again, if it had come out right after the J2NF last year, like I wouldn't be surprised if it had, obviously it would have had some stiff competition with Loco, Boomstick. Like other great options did come out, but I really feel like it had a chance last year to be really popular, especially because I think the performance is above a black opal

[01:15:07] and would have fixed some of the polarizing things about the black opal. So it's just, it's one of those things where it's like you had it. It was in your hand. Just release it. Yeah. You know, and I understand the manufacturing and all that stuff. It's not that as simple as, hey, we have it now. Let's just make a million of them. But I just think it's late now. Let's do this. Let's exclude the paddles that we know we really like and that are more popular. The 60 millimeter floating core paddles.

[01:15:35] Let's keep things in the same camp as this and see what would you pick? You have, I wouldn't quite say Valer Shift is really in the same camp, but it's 14. So we'll say Valer Shift, black opal, boulder opal, and then I'm blanking on the name. I could throw waves in there, but we already know that's at the bottom. What's Carbon's other, the new. Oh, the Barrage? The Barrage. Okay. So that one in there. Where, where, what are you picking out of those 14 millimeter foam paddles? Remind me what the first two were again. It was the Shift and. Shift and then. Oh my gosh.

[01:16:05] Oh, black opal. Black opal. I think my order would most likely go Barrage, boulder opal, shift, black opal. Top to bottom. Oh, top. One to four. I was like, really? You put that at the top? Okay. So the boulder opal is up there. Like, it's not, it's not a bad paddle, but it's just, you know, against 14 millimeter options. Yes, it's one I would. Okay, now let's throw 14 millimeter Q2 in there.

[01:16:34] I would need more time on it, but Q214 would probably go to the top. Probably need to the top. Because that's, that's probably the closest feeling to any of the 16 millimeter foam paddles. Agree. Out of all the 14s. I think the Q214 is probably the best foam 14 that has come out. Yeah. I can't. It doesn't have as much of the drawbacks as some of the other ones have had. Yeah. I think it has a better sweet spot for a 14. All these other ones that I just mentioned, 14s, have significant drop off in sweet spot. Yeah. Than 16 millimeter counterparts.

[01:17:02] I think the other thing too, that makes this maybe from a consumer perspective, a little bit harder to understand, or maybe makes it less forgiving is you just had the Coral Pro, like I said, with the UPA Diamond Tough, which was a big hit. It was much rougher. Then since this is USAP only, it's obviously much smoother. I mean, this is, you know, an extremely smooth texture. Yola grit. Yeah. How it is supposed to be. Exactly. Exactly. So it makes it in comparison to another paddle you just released feel more confusing because

[01:17:32] everyone's talking about how good the Diamond Tough UPA spin is. And then this comes out and you're like, consumers are like, oh, but it's smooth. That's the first thing everyone does. Yeah. When I go to a park or I go to a session, I'm testing new paddles and someone says, hey, can I see that? The very first thing I do is grab it. Guaranteed every time. And the thing is, this doesn't even get bad spin. Like, I think my test, it was about 20, 29 RPM. Okay. That's fine. Playing with it today. It was fine.

[01:18:01] Definitely better than, you know, the Zen. Yeah. But not as good as, you know. I feel like I was able to shape drops pretty well. Yeah. Like it, so it's not bad for being smooth, but I think the average person is going to just going to be confused. Yeah. So I think there's a lot of, it all came down to timing with the Boulder Opal. It was just released at a better time in a different order. Okay. So now with 6-0's lineup, they have Coral, Coral Pro, Black Opal, Boulder Opal.

[01:18:31] Ruby Pro. Ruby Pro. So that's like five different paddles all with, I mean, Coral, Coral Pro is fairly similar, but with pretty drastic different feel preferences versus let's take Selkirk or Friday where it's Aura, Aura Pro. Mm-hmm. Stiff and hollow and soft and dense. Those are your options. What would you prefer in a lineup?

[01:18:59] Because again, I just think it's really, as a consumer, we know this stuff in and out and it gets confusing. So if you're a consumer, at least I would lean towards the more simple two options. Yeah. I think it's, it can go both ways, right? Because I think if you, if you take a Friday approach, you could be like, oh, well, maybe some of your two options are too similar to other people. So I won't choose you where like the advantage for 6-0 with a Black Opal or Boulder Opal is it's so different that the people who are into that are going to be like all about

[01:19:29] it. But then the people who aren't into it are really not into it. So it's like, do you want to be lukewarm or do you want to be at the extremes? I would say the two soft, uh, soft and dense and stiff and hollow, just having those covers what? 80, 85% of the market. Yeah. Okay. So you're missing out on 15% of player base. Yeah. Is that enough? Like, and then this is the 15% going to cover enough of your, you know, costs or is that like a big enough push for you to have it? I don't know. Maybe it is.

[01:19:59] They're making it. So I, I really, and I mean, I imagine in 6-0s case, it's gotta be like Coral and Coral Pro are making up 80% of, you know, the, the normal people like, Hey, that that's the one for me. And then this is like what their sign players are using. Yeah. Corals and Coral Pros. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that should tell you a lot. Exactly. And to be fair, the Coral Pro is really good. That's a paddle I want to review at some point. Like that's an awesome paddle. I really like it. Big fan of it.

[01:20:29] With maybe the extra diamonds, it got a little stiffer and got a little bit of extra pop. It just kind of bumped it up a little bit nice to make, separate it a little bit from the regular Coral Pro. It get that paddles in a very good sweet spot. Like home run with the Coral Pro. Yeah. Home run. Agree. So, all right, let's, let's move on to our last paddles here. Okay. Two gearbox paddles. Oh yeah. I don't know if these are going to stand up that well. I think that will. Maybe.

[01:20:57] If I remember testing, this one was, yeah, this one's awesome. I'll just hold it. We can just hold it. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. So, gearbox has some paddles that are coming out October 1st. And they are, there's two models. They're called the Pressure X and there's the 8E and the 8M for EPP and MPP. I'll go over some stats real quick and then we can kind of go over this. First of all, price will be $279.99 before a discount code, but I believe codes will work. Twist weight on both of these was 5.93.

[01:21:26] So, remarkably similar. And then swing weights. The EPP was 119 and the MPP was 117. Seems to be pretty close overall. Like they're going to be, and these are both elongated what we have. Yep. No idea if they have plans for other shapes, but that's what we have right now. So, I'll give my thoughts first and then you can give your thoughts. Yep. Maybe with more time and break-in, there will be bigger gaps between these paddles.

[01:21:53] But initially hitting them, like my first five minutes with both, it was very, I wouldn't say very hard, but hard enough for me to really find differences that I would, if I was taking one of our friends and they said, Chris, tell me, should I buy the 8M or the 8E? Which should I buy? You know, like black opal and bolder opal, like we just talked about. I could pretty easily tell you, most of you should probably buy the bolder opal.

[01:22:19] Hitting this, I was like, yes, there is a difference, but it's not big enough for me to go, yes, you will definitively prefer this one or you will definitively prefer this one. Really? To me, it came down to power level, very similar with both. It really was just a feel thing. Like the, now I need to see if I'm even remembering this correctly. Let me see, because I remember them better by color.

[01:22:46] The MPP, to me at times, I'm trying to remember if I'm remembering this correctly. This is how confused I am. I'll tell you, because I know I have a very strict preference. I'm pretty sure I thought the MPP was a little stiffer and the EPP was a little softer. Yes. Okay. But look how hard that was for me versus other paddles we've done in the past. It's funny because I am on the other side of the fence where I have a much bigger preference towards these two, one over the other than you do. Okay. What's your preference?

[01:23:15] I prefer the 8E, the EPP. Okay. And I think it is, in my opinion, a big enough difference to be like, if I know someone's preferences, I would push them towards one or the other. Now have you took like... I think they both perform good. It's not saying one's bad. Correct. But there's a big enough separation between the two that I would recommend one over the other. Do you think... Let's take most of our friends and our friend group that we know. If you handed them both of this, do you think they would easily spot those differences or no?

[01:23:45] Depends because I feel like the people we hit with are different. And some of the people that we hit with the same don't know anything about paddles. So then it would be... But like take... I mean, I feel like if you gave a black opal and a boulder opal, most people in our friend groups would be like, okay, I can feel a difference between these. Where to me, it feels like they'd maybe have a harder time with this. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is a me thing. No, I think they would know. Okay. I think they would. Because for me, just at the kitchen alone, dinking in hands battles, I had a very strong preference. Okay.

[01:24:14] I think the EPP was much better. A much softer, springy, plush feel, which hasn't always been... Like I've kind of been shifting back and forth between stiffer and softer paddles. I think I initially really liked strictly like soft paddles. Mm-hmm. Like soft and hollow. Yep. Keep talking. I'm just going to pull up an email. Really thonky paddles I really like. Now I'm kind of going back towards stiff paddles, the stiff and hollow I like. I go back and forth. Mm-hmm.

[01:24:44] I think with the EPP one, really satisfying feel, very soft, very hollow. When I went to the MPP, immediately in hands battles, it felt really stiff, and I felt like there was a drop off in sweet spot performance compared to the 8E. But then once I got to the baseline on bigger swings, I felt like the difference was more subtle.

[01:25:08] I could tell it was stiffer, but it felt closer to the EPP than at the kitchen. Mm-hmm. And then on drops, I felt a difference. So it really came down to how fast I was swinging the paddle. Okay. Okay. But I still think that there was a big enough difference in how stiff the MPP one was. Okay. Which I feel like is kind of the other way around. Yeah, with other companies. With some of the EPP, MPP. Yeah, EPP is usually stiffer. Let's take the turbos. Yeah. The EPP was a little bit stiffer.

[01:25:37] The MPP, really thonky, really hollow. Yeah. So it's kind of odd that it's kind of flipped with these. Yeah, and maybe their carbon fiber, the ribs have something to do with it. You know, they're still using their SST core. It's like a little bit different this time around, but maybe that plays a factor in it as well. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, the difference is for me, and again, maybe more play time, maybe break in will change things. I will say, I feel like we've had enough times now where, you know, when I got into Pickleball,

[01:26:06] Gearbox was the definitive, these guys are the most durable. These paddles are tanks. They don't change. And then when they got to the Gearbox Elongated Pro Power, which was kind of the one that bumped them up a notch in terms of popularity, it started breaking in a lot and then changing. And I feel like pretty much every paddle they've had since then, take the popular one last year, the GX2 Power, I really liked it out of the box and was like, yeah, this is like a Pro 4 competitor. And then once it broke in, I was like, these are so different.

[01:26:35] And I actually prefer a Pro 4 over this, you know, and it changed so much that I was like, I just can't really recommend this. So with these, I'm like, is it going to be another one of those? Like the break-ins with Gearboxes, I feel like have been so drastic the last couple years that it's like new versus used is way more of a difference than other comparable options on our wall right now. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I'll have to put some time on one of these and see if it changes, how much it changes.

[01:27:05] I'm very curious. And it's also interesting with the texture on the face. I was just about to talk about that. It looks like, if you remember the pickle skins, like someone slapped one of those on the center and then the edges are different. And I guarantee you, people are going to complain or say something about it not reaching to the edge. And my thing is, if you're hitting a ball off here, that ball shouldn't even be in the court. You shouldn't be hitting spin from there. You should not be hitting this part of the paddle. So I did talk to Rafa a bit about this.

[01:27:34] The way their system works for it was a little bit over my head in terms of how all of it works. But yes, you're right. This lighter area is different than this outside area. Like this center area is supposed to be a more durable grit option. I think John just tested it and it landed maybe like tier two or something. So, you know, we'll see in the real world. But yeah, it is different. And I don't know the whole concept of exactly how they're doing it. Honestly, I'm not really, I don't care that much about the specifics.

[01:28:03] I more just want to know, does it hold up in the real world? Yeah. You know, because for me, spin on these paddles is, I would kind of put it in the boulder opal camp where I'm like, okay, I can put spin on the ball and it's fine. But I can't do it as well as some of these other paddles I've been hitting recently. And some of that- I felt a little less consistent with these on drives. Like I'd have some pretty crazy drives where I got a lot of spin, but it was harder to replicate that with this over- Multiple shots. Yeah.

[01:28:33] Over multiple shots compared to other paddles. Yeah. I had the same thing for me. And some of that might be, I would say these are pretty powerful, launchy paddles. Like you enhance baseline, you will be hitting the ball plenty hard with these. Yeah. Power is not going to be a complaint. So if you're not a big fan of huge power pop paddles, I don't know that these are going to be for you. But I wonder how much of the spin is because of that. You know, like if I'm comparing a Beesel Tour, I would put that a very noticeable notch below these.

[01:29:03] And now I'm talking fresh. I'm not talking when the Beesel Tour is used, but fresh. I could shape the ball way better on the Beesel Tour than I could with these. Yeah. So it's, I'd put it in that class of the spin is acceptable, not exceptional. Yeah. And I think I would need to go look at my computer. I want to say when I did my RPM tests, these were coming back like high 1900, low 2000. So about the same exact range as the Boulder Opal. Okay. Um, so yeah, it's like,

[01:29:33] this is the only shape these come in, right? At launch. At launch. They might have more. It's just, this is like the Magnus shape, the elongated long face, shorter handle. Just not for you. Is it? It's not, well, it's not for me. And I'm just wondering, is this still that popular? I wonder the same thing. I wonder the same thing. I mean, clearly it was so not popular enough for Yola that they dropped it, but they also have a different thing. It's the Magnus Tyson's paddle versus Ben Johns is playing with a Perseus.

[01:30:03] Yep. So that's maybe not a one-to-one example. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I would say they're good paddles. My caution right now is more just around what is the breaking going to look like and how much does the paddle change? Mm-hmm. Uh, more so than I am with other paddles. But I would say this is probably the best gearbox paddle I've played with. Hmm. I know you really liked the, the GX2. I mean, I thought the GX2 Power was a very good paddle.

[01:30:33] The GX2 Power. I just didn't like the breaking. That's right. Like, I think they are comparable with very different feels. Mm-hmm. Is kind of what I would say. Like, the feel of the GX2 Power is very different from these, but maybe similarly powerful pre-breaking. Yeah. Uh, so to me, I don't know if I'd say best. I would say lateral shift from the GX2 Power is probably how I'd be looking at it. Gotcha. Uh, but I mean, I don't really remember you loving the GX2 Power last year or having maybe a lot to say, but clearly you like this.

[01:31:02] Yeah, it was, I don't know, it was okay. I didn't love it. Um, but these, I, I would take these over at GX2 Power for sure. Okay. So, yeah, potentially an interesting option from Gearbox, but yeah, I would definitely keep an eye on, you know, when reviews start coming out on this, I'd be asking how much time was put on because I can tell you right now, if I had to review a GX2 Power off of two hours of use versus whatever I did 12, 15 hours last year, those would be night and day different reviews. You can, I mean, you can literally go look.

[01:31:29] I did a first impression of the GX2 Power and then a full review. And my thoughts changed a pretty good amount from that. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not as normal with other paddles, you know? Right. Like I wouldn't expect a Coral Pro to change like that. Oh. All right. That is all we had for paddles. I just have one thing I want to talk about in the kitchen really quick. We're probably at a pretty long podcast by now, if I had to guess, but we'll just talk about one thing, save the other thing for next week. And this is actually perfect timing for the Gearbox.

[01:31:58] This is like a great transition. I want to know if people even care about how paddles are built anymore, because I feel like back in the day, let's say Gen 1 to Gen 2, okay, adding that foam and that carbon fiber seal, that was a big deal because it made the paddles play very different. It also stiffened them in a way that the braking was not happening at the throat as often anymore. So that change made a very big difference in durability, both in a good way and a bad way, core crushing,

[01:32:27] but then also the performance. Now that paddles, there's basically a formula for these foam paddles, like, all right, you're going to do one EVA ring. Maybe you're going to do a second ring, maybe even a third ring. Then you're going to have one solid piece of foam in the center. Maybe you're going to put some holes in it. Maybe you're not. There's like small variations you can do, but those changes don't line up as easily as they used to in the past.

[01:32:54] Like, okay, Gen 1 versus Gen 2, very obvious what the difference is. Oh, you changed the cell size. Pretty obvious, reasonably obvious to tell the difference in what changed and why it feels the way it does. With all these foam paddles, the different densities, how many rings they're doing, nothing means anything anymore. You could have two paddles with two EVA rings and the same EPP foam in the center, and I feel like they're going to play pretty differently because of densities and all that.

[01:33:22] So to me, I'm at the point where I don't even care how the paddle's built now. Mm-hmm. Like, all the, let's say the last 15 paddles we've gotten, I literally didn't care what was inside of it. I was just like, is it good? That's what we care about. Before, the builds kind of told you how it was going to play. The way they're built now, it doesn't even, even EPP MPP. The EPP gearbox feels more like an MPP to me. Yeah, compared to what we've been hitting.

[01:33:50] Yes, compared to what we've become accustomed to. So, and the Power 2 is an MPP foam paddle. Does not feel like an MPP turbo. Mm-hmm. I would almost say to me, the Power 2 feels closer to EPP from what other EPP paddles I've hit. So I'm just like, it doesn't mean anything anymore. I don't care how fancy you've built it if the paddle sucks. Yeah, right. I don't care if the gearbox has an SSD core in it, if it breaks in and turns into something I don't like anymore. So I don't know.

[01:34:19] I'm just curious if other people feel the same way. Like, let me know down in a comment. Do you even care? Because to me, I actually don't think it matters anymore. It's maybe interesting to see, but it's not telling you much. Be curious to take a person, a player, and grab a bunch of different, like, styles of cores. Some that are all the same across different models. And then throw in some differences and have them hit all of them

[01:34:47] and see if their preferences line up with the different builds across different paddles. I think it's just tough because even the densities are probably so different for the main center hitting foam. Yeah. That I feel like you wouldn't even be able to know, like, okay, it has EVA ring and EPP, but maybe the EPP is a different density. Because there's a player I have in mind I talk to a lot over the phone about different constructions of paddles, and he's working on trying to find a paddle that works for him.

[01:35:12] And he believes that there is a, he has a very strong preference with a build. And I kind of go back and forth on if he actually does or if it's a mental thing. Yeah, if it's a mental thing. Yeah. Where, like, if I was working with him, if he came here, and I could give him, like, six different paddles and not tell him what was in either one, if his preference would still consistently line up with those builds or if he would lean towards something else. Yeah.

[01:35:41] So, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if it really matters as much anymore. Yeah. I mean, maybe until, maybe it'll matter. You know, I think the difference between honeycomb and foam clearly matters to a lot of people still. But the difference in the various foam paddles, I'm like, I don't know that it really matters anymore. Maybe I'm crazy. But even, like, when I'm doing my reviews now, you know, I feel like x-rays and stuff were really important. And I think that is still helpful. I'm really glad John is still doing that. And he puts them in his database for people to see.

[01:36:11] I think that is fantastic. But I'm just finding for how I do my reviews, I'm like, this, the people watching my reviews, I don't think they care. And I don't think this is actually going to tell them something that would make them not buy the paddle. Yeah. Like, imagine you could see the build of a paddle. You're not going, well, if it's got two EVA rings, I ain't buying it. Yeah. Versus one, you know? It's not going to be the reason you buy it or not buy it. I personally, when we get paddles, I don't even look at the construction until after I've played with it. Yeah.

[01:36:38] It just doesn't matter to me. I just care if I actually like how it plays or how it feels. Like, I don't, maybe if I had looked at the gearboxes and thought MPP, EPP, still wouldn't have changed my preference. Like, maybe beginning before I hit it, I would have thought, okay, I'm probably going to like the MPP one more. But then after you hit it, it just doesn't matter. Yeah, you ended up liking the EPP one more. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so it's just kind of an interesting thought I had. It's been a weird place.

[01:37:08] My question is, with profiles of paddles, do you think we're going to, because right now we're still just seeing everyone come out with power, power, power, power, power. No, I think there's been a lot of all-court this year, though. There's more, but like, look at the Zen, look at the Mark, look at like the, even the VATIC VESOL Tour. Yeah. That's a pretty poppy, powerful paddle. I think we're still seeing majority lean towards pop and power. I agree. Do you think it's going to continue, like people just chasing that?

[01:37:37] Or are we going to get to a point where all the companies start to lower it? Because like, even with the Omni, it's still a pretty powerful paddle. Yeah, that's not an all-core paddle. That's supposed to be an all-core paddle. That's still... It's all-core if you take all the weights off it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Then it's all-core. But with the weight, it's not all-core. So, see, I think it's interesting because I feel like the reason, well, one, there are just still a lot of people who want a power paddle. But I think what is, not everyone has realized,

[01:38:06] but more people are realizing is a lot of them don't play their best pickleball with a power paddle, and they play better with an all-core paddle. But you have a more fun reaction to a big power paddle. Think of how we reacted hitting the Zen and the Mark. We're sitting there going like, oh my gosh, like this is kind of nuts. But then, I don't know, we didn't have... But you and I recognize we would never go to a tournament with those. Yes. But I think it's just that the stronger reaction, it's like more dopamine from a power paddle

[01:38:35] than a Coral Pro. But, you might play way better with the Coral Pro. So it's like, does the dopamine of cool I can hit the ball harder mean more to you than actually playing better? I think there are a lot of people where that still has not fully connected. Yeah. You know? So, I don't know. I think, I won't be surprised if we still keep seeing a shift towards all-core paddles, but I don't think that means the power paddles are going away. I wish I was more involved in like, the tennis market. Because I wonder if like,

[01:39:06] one frames, do more power-oriented frames sell better? And also like, the masses amongst like, amateur players across all levels, do they lean towards lower string tension because they want to hit the ball hard? Yeah. Or do they go more towards high string tension because they know they can't even keep the ball in with say, a 40 pound string tension? I mean, my understanding, at least for the pros, is that usually it's like, a control leaning frame. Yeah. And,

[01:39:35] okay, I would not quote me on this because I am not, I'm not a tennis guy. But my understanding is that the higher level guys are usually more control frame or higher tension because they can generate their own power. They don't need the racket to do it for them. Whereas like an amateur, they can't generate that head speed to get that power. So maybe they lean a little more power. But yeah, I'd be curious to know if it's as rabid in tennis, like, oh, if it's not a power paddle, it's garbage. Yeah, exactly. So I just don't know. I'm curious. If anyone out there listening is more involved

[01:40:05] in the amateur side of the tennis world, leave a comment. Let me know. Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to know because I also wonder sometimes if it's more satisfying in pickleball having a power paddle for, because the shot type is more dynamic in pickleball than it is in tennis. Like everything, not everything, a very large amount of singles tennis is hitting ground strokes from the baseline. In pickleball, you have counters at the net, you have dinks, you have overheads,

[01:40:35] you have drives from the baseline or a counter from transition. Like there's a lot of other areas where hitting the ball hard and quick and surprising someone does more. Whereas I don't know that you're going to hit a ton of ground strokes in tennis that just shock someone and they're like, oh, I couldn't get to that one over and over. Whereas maybe every time in pickleball, you keep speeding up to a guy with a boulder opal and he keeps crushing it at your feet, you're like, this guy hits the ball so hard. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I don't know.

[01:41:05] That's just a guess. I also know like at least with tension for some people with like tennis elbow or stuff like that, the feeling of lower, higher tension, like how soft or stiff it gets. I know that can play a big role for a lot of people, but yeah, it is very different. I mean, the shot type and selection is much more broad in pickleball than tennis. Yeah, they give way more options and I mean, I'm going to be, I know this is not all the options, but like, okay, ground stroke, drop shot,

[01:41:35] volley, and serve. It's like your four shots. It's more nuanced. Like there's four hand slices, backhand slices. Yes. But you're not hitting a top spin cross court drop in tennis. Could you imagine? Here's my third shot drop, guys. Maybe that would work at the amateur level. Yeah, probably. So anyways, that's all we got for you guys this week. Bro, we didn't come up with a word. We didn't think about it. Whoa. What's the word going to be? Word. What is the word going to be? Oh, man.

[01:42:06] We don't have a word this week. We suck at this. Yeah, we're so bad at our job. We'll catch you guys next week with a word. Yeah. Sweet. All right. Peace.