Best spin from a non shaped or textured string?

ChicagoJack

Hall of Fame
I've tried everything under the sun in search of a good spinny set up. Gear shaped Kevlar, ultra thin poly, edged and twisted poly etc etc.... The two spinniest string beds I've found (of any kind) are 1. A full bed of Dunlop Black Widow 18 (which has edges), and 2. just about any 17 Gauge Gut mains with MSV Co-Focus 17 crosses (which has no edges). I'd say the spin is about even Steven on groundies, with a slight advantage to the textured poly on serve.
 
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cluckcluck

Hall of Fame
Top Spin Cyber Blue has pretty sweet spin. Not anything like a textured string but still pretty good. Another that comes to mind in the Pacific X-Force 17.
 

PKfan1

Semi-Pro
Does the texture make that much of a difference?

It's been years since I played with a non textured in the mains, then I playtested the new lux 4g and was hard pressed to realize any huge difference in spin. Is the difference only very slight?
 

pvaudio

Legend
Textured strings are interesting. Even the shaped and twisted ones like Tornado and BHBR all suffer from the same downfall that geared strings like Blue Gear and Spiky Shark do. After even an hour of solid hitting, the sweetspot strings are now smooth. As TW postulated, therefore, it stands to reason that a textured main with a smooth cross would be best. And yet, I haven't found this to be the case. From poly to poly, there are differences. Silverstring, as an example, notoriously does not produce a lot of spin. As commish00 said, BAM does produce a lot. How much quantifiably? No idea at all, but the difference is noticeable while playing. The key here is that a smooth string like Scorpion or SPPP will continue to be spinny long after BHBR or Tour Bite have worn down.

So I'll summarize like this: if you're a huge hitter and break strings quickly, go textured for extra bite. If you're in it for the longer run and cut strings out, you might as well go with a smooth string. Just my opinion having just settled on a setup.
 

JRstriker12

Hall of Fame
In your opinion what string produces the most spin excluding shaped or textured ones?

Non-textured? Full bed of Lux ALU - at least for the first 4-6 hours of play.

BTW- I am an fan of shaped/textured strings. Used to hit with Pro-supex blue gear. My current set-up is a full string of tour-bite.
 

pvaudio

Legend
What set up have you decided on staying with?
Scorpion mains, and thunderblast crosses at the moment, but may switch to Nvy or a smooth syn gut like the new Dunlop S-Gut. Basically something that plays like Scorp but isn't full poly and has a cheap cross that doesn't destroy the felt on the balls haha.
 

mikeler

Moderator
Scorpion mains, and thunderblast crosses at the moment, but may switch to Nvy or a smooth syn gut like the new Dunlop S-Gut. Basically something that plays like Scorp but isn't full poly and has a cheap cross that doesn't destroy the felt on the balls haha.


Seems there are several other black strings that "leach" onto the ball. I'm noticing it while playing a few other folks at my club. They are not using Thunder Blast either.

Did you feel like the B5E edges wore down much? I could never tell much difference over the life of the string. They are not pronounced edges like other strings, perhaps that is why it is more difficult to tell.
 

pvaudio

Legend
They really didn't, but B5E just doesn't do it for me as an all-court string. At the baseline it's superior, but Scorp works everywhere.
 
After doing major experimentation for aboutb6 months I can tell you that tension has a much greater effect on spin than texture. Specially in the higher tensions and the really low tensions 30s and low 40s. And even more so the combination of the above and player style/quality of strokes. Changing to strings with textures on a 3.0-3.5 player to help with spin without improving their strokes is a waste of time and negligible at best. In summary their are many more factors and variables than just the texture or not.
 
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