Butterfly Balsa Carbo X5

This is an excellent blade. I am a mid 1900’s player that loops, blocks, hits, pushes – basically everything but primarily aim to be an offensive, forehand looper. I have been using the Michael Maze for several years and, most recently, tried out the Timo Boll Spirit blade. With the Maze, everything is great until I run up against players north of 2100, at which point the Maze becomes a little unwieldy, too fast and difficult to control at times. I have also found the Maze difficult to slow loop and hit “control” shots – the “touch” is lacking. As a bonus, the X5 also has a very fat grip (I have the straight handle but have also seen the anatomic which is equally as beefy). Butter fly is way off in their mm ratings of this handle. They rate it at 22 mm thick - the same as the Maze and TBS but the X5 handle is visually much thicker, no question about it. I prefer thicker handles and find many of the Japanese/Chinese blades to be too skinny versus some of the German brands. In terms of specs, this blade is lighter than most by about 10%-15% which really helps if you are using heavy sponge such as Tenergy, etc. I have always felt that Tenergy, when used in combination with 89-95 gram blades, is simply too heavy a package. The X5 solvers this issue and feels very well balanced with these heavier sponges. In comparison to the Maze and TBS, the X5 has better control, a much better short game, is far easier to loop and “slow loop” and has enough gears to hit or loop from mid distance without issue – plenty of power. I have no idea what some of the negative reviewers experienced or why – maybe they thought they had an X5 but did not! I have always wanted to try a softer blade and have heard good reports on Balsa woods. I now know why – the Balsa wood is very forgiving but this blade was no sponge. I am not sure what the outer wood layers are made from but they work very well in combination with the Balsa core and carbon layers. My game improved immediately – the first time out!

I have bought this blade hoping for a light looping blade with control. And i got that at 68 grams. It has very good dwell which helps you a lot on loops. The facts that is flexy helps too. Blocks are good, but you have to do active blocks to get them unconfortable for the oponent. It has several speeds and pushing is nice and stays low. Little vibration, but decent feedback. Unfortunatelly the consistency is crap when pushing, blocking, flipping. Sometimes i get a weird vibration and the ball simply dies on the paddle. This usually happens when you make contact closer to the tip, which is a big minus on flips and pushes. I'm still using the blade only because i haven't found any better. Because of poor consistency i recomend trying other products from butterfly, maybe those are better built.

Very thick (7mm), stiff and soft blade. For a such thick and stiff blade it has good dwell. It's a light blade (mine is 80g). The structure of plies is basswood-carbon-balsa-carbon-basswood. It's faster than Friendship/729 V-6 with less control and less dwell. I have played 2 seasons of SOKAZ league with it, but then I found that there is better blades for loopers with more dwell time (e.g. Friendship/729 V-6). I think it's better for pips-out (short pips) attackers on BH side than for 2 side loopers.

Pencarian blade idamanku akhirnya berhenti di sini. Blade BCX5 ini punya semua yg saya butuhkan ! Sangat nyaman untuk serang ataupun bertahan. Apalagi dengan berat yg termasuk ringan, sangat ideal untuk kelincahan reflek dan menghemat stamina.

Great OFF blade with plenty of vibration. The touch is excellent with alot of consistency on service return. I would reccomend a medium/soft rubber to get the most from this balsa blade. I'm able to get plenty of power from this but I feel it lacks long range power. Perhaps because its so light!