Just tried a good combo on y.vcore.dual.g 17g pp.hexaspintwist.blue 49lbs 17g pp.intense.heat.blue 46lbs good spin, comfort, control, pop
Next time you'r ordering, buy a pack and try It,, interesting string, but not my cup of tea over others I like comfort polys best a slightly crisper better string than blackout iimo is strategem
Not a fan of pp.concept,, too dead feel, and it moves alot,,, but im using18g concept as a cross poly with pp.ku.de.ta mains,, looks good, playes pretty good..
Like I mentioned,, strategem is crisper than blackout,, Both good, depends what u like.. def very similar to babolat.rpm..
@1HBHfanatic, I have been a fan of Black Out 1.24mm in larger hooped racquets like APDs. However, seemed to lack stability in smaller headed racquets. Eventually settled on Volkl Cyclone 16 in those racquets. Not a fan of RPM but wonder if you or anyone else can comment on Strategem -vs- Volkl Cyclone. Strategem is quite a bit cheaper and with my 4 to 6 hour restring window, tension maintenance is not a primary consideration for me. If Strategem played similar to Volkl Cyclone in the first few hours, I would certainly consider looking into it. I suppose I could just buy a reel and risk it, but any comments would be much appreciated.
I quite like Strategem 8. By no means is it superior in tension maintenance but it certainly does anything that kind of string should do. It's slick enough, has good control, and the feel is similar to RPM which I like. Great cross string, not a bad main string at all either. I'm not a huge fan of the black color (not a fan of black strings in general) but it does play very nicely.
Strategem is a very good string! It’s the best spin string full bed of any of the Pro’s Pro strings. I played with the 1.20 last summer for 2-3 weeks but unfortunately it destroyed my arm. It plays similar to Cyclone with similar spin. It has that black poly muted feel. I remembered thinking that ,”Geez, I can’t miss with this!” In retrospect I should of restrung more frequently but to my surprise it’s durable and it plays well for much longer than Black Out. I normally use full poly like Hyper G 17, TBite 18, and Cyclone 18L. I’m now testing BO vs Hyper G 17 in my Pure Aero VS. So far Hyper G is winning I believe due to the 16x20 pattern tones down the mushiness(fake word?) of Hyper G. We’ll see
@Karma Tennis , I havent played with volkl strings much,, but @El_Yotamo says it well, I agree,, strategem is jusssssst close enough to b.rpm, I would suggest you buy "single packs", first.. pp is not for everyone, you might or might not like it.. very frustrating to get stuck with a BUNCH of string you dont like.. ime..
Thanks for the info guys. I can purchase reels of Stratagem 8 for just over 1/3 the cost of Volkl Cylcone. If the playability is similar for the first 4 to 6 hours then there could be a significant $$$ saving. Prefer reels to single packs simply because of the cost saving. And if we don't like it we can happily pass it on to someone else.
Playtested Hyper G 17 vs Pro’s Pro Black Out 1.24 today side by side. Same tension, same racquets and low and behold if I didn’t like Black Out better! (Side note Black Out weighed 3 grams more than Hyper G 17)Hyper G is a very nice string but I just noticed that the ball bite on Hyper G is so good that it over spins the ball and leaves a shorter ball than I’m accustomed too. To me there is something just right about BO! I’ve played BO in all different kinds of racquets but the more flexible the frame the better BO plays for me. Now I’m playing with the Pure Aero VS and I have no clue why it’s this comfortable but my guess is that it has something to do with the thinner beam hoop. Any how still messing around with ol’ Black Out after all these years!
Did you do anything to the HG racquet to match it to the BO one with the extra 3g in the hoop? Maybe you like a little more swing weight, static weight, and HH balance. If you were swinging the BO racquet a little slower, that would also cut down on the amount of top spin.
@tennisBIEST , @Muppet what I find in pros.pro string, is a bit more pop and comfort than your name brand polys,, that small bit of extra pop, seems to work well with correct tensions, for "my club level play"... after using pros pro, I cannot use luxilon anymore; with lux I have to work soo much harder to get the depth..
Spoke too soon! I had some pain in my arm after playing with full bed of Black Out in the Pure Aero VS 2 nights ago. This hasn’t happened since my last go around with Strategem 8. Played Hyper G all day yesterday and no pain last night. I’m going to give BO another go but with Black Force 1.19 in the crosses and see if that works better in the PA VS.
I've tried Pro's Pro Cyber Power 1.25 for about 2 months. Ended up swapping it out for gut/poly hybrid due to golfer's elbow pain esp. after lots of serving. Not sure if it was the strings or not but they felt quite stiff.
Thanks for your post. I'm seriously considering a CP 1.20 reel. But now that you pointed out the GE, it reminds me of Mosquito Bite which gave me some mild but persistent GE from practicing my serve. Maybe I'll have to order a 2nd pack to be sure before getting a reel.
Some of the soft pp.polys I can recomend from my experience pp.red.devil pp.ichiban.spin pp.plus.power
Black Out 1.24mm is quite "plasticky". I found that it was quite stiff at higher tensions so I tended to string it in the low to mid 50s. Seemed to work very well in a leaded up APD BUT really needed to be restrung after every 4 odd hours of use (which isn't a problem for me). Tried it at all sorts of tensions in smaller hooped more flexible frames but it was too low powered for me. Maybe 1.28mm would have been better but never bothered to try that one. Moved straight to Volkl Cyclone for those frames. Currently testing Wilson PS97 with Cyclone. When I get the chance will try Black Out 1.24mm and Stratagem 8 1.3mm. As i mentioned earlier, very interested to see if Stratagem 8 would be a decent substitute for Cyclone.
Thanks. I'm already working on a reel of Red Devil 1.19. I finally found the tensions that I think I'm going to stick with, 49/46 in a Dunlop MuscleWeave 95 18x20. It is more comfortable at impact, but lacks a little in bite compared to Cyber Power white 1.20 @51/50. I just received a reel of Plus Power 1.23 a couple of days ago. I've used it before in an Aerogel 200, but the strings didn't hold tension very well. Noting the M-fil elements along the hoop @3&9, I tried stringing it with PP mains and Black Force 1.14 crosses @51/51. BF has held tension better for me in that racquet. Ready for some warmer weather.
Yeah, I've had Cyclone, Signum Tornado, Hyper G, and now Blackout in my current racket, and I can definitely feel that Blackout is the least comfortable. I'm playing with a Prince Phantom Pro, so it's not an issue at the moment, but wouldn't want to play with it for the long haul, even in such a comfy frame. And to be honest, it's my least favorite of all those strings, though it is just a fraction of what those others cost.
I have to test strings ... all the time ... or I get this ... this itch So yesterday I bought a pack of Red Devil 1.19, Synthetic 1.30 and Hexaspin Twist in both 1.20 and 1.25. I strung Red Devil in a full bed (42/40) and Synthetic as mains with pp nano power as crosses (46/44). I going to test both setups today.
@OldschoolKlaus , know what you mean about the itch I fight the urge to cut string from my rakets after a couple hits, to try to test more.. 1month is all I can hold off,, all my rakets have diff strings,, my game sucks cause I cant stick to 1 setup.. haaaa,, but I dont care, gota test them all! Btw. Pp.red.devil, makes a good cross string, multis and/or polys.. I strung up tec.redcode.16g/pp.red.devil.17lg 49/46,, played good, looked even better
Isn't this the Isner hybrid? But why don't you use both mains and crosses Reddevil as it is supposed to be a redcode clone?
I kno isner loves tecnifibre red code. He tried to switch last year to a black string, and came back to red code.. prospro is a much.much.much softer poly,, too soft to stay on for long but it works great on crosses..
Red Devil didn't work for me. It felt too stiff and I never felt confident enough. Synthetic/nano power was good for 2 hours, than lost tension pretty quickly and became a furious power beast ^^
How come you find Reddevil very stiff at a much lower tension than Muppet who finds it almost too soft at a higher tension? Your observation that (nana) plus power is rather powerfully. It lives up to it's name. You probably shouldn't have hybrid it with a syngut. Maybe you could try reddevil mains with syngut crosses?
Red Devil 1.19/Gamma SG had very nice pop and the right amount of comfort in my MuscleWeave, but it had no bite. Red Devil feels too solid in the mains w/multi crosses @47/52 in my Biomimetic 200. And that was in warm weather. And I can't even feel it in my Aerogel 200. It has a very nice, unique feel in the MuscleWeave. The string is very frame dependent.
for those that hybrid poly beds, I have enjoyed using Red Dev in the crosses with a textured poly main.
I find Red Devil very soft and comfortable. I string it at 50lbs in a dropweight in an open pattern, fairly flexy frame (Prince TT100t). It stretches like a syn gut in my stringer.
Next round: Hexaspin Twist 1.25 at 42/40 lbs. Slightly stiffer than Hexaspin, but way more spin. Lasted quite long for a pp poly (6h) before it went dead.
