Darker Esteem

My new weapon of choice!!! Sadly discontinued. Coming from Carbon-Balsa, I was looking for a light setup. After a few reading I came to this one. It has everything I was looking for: Powerful. Despite the weight (71 gr for my bat) It's really fast, and a very linear feeling. You touch slow, it's slow, you hit hard, it's FAST!!! Sweetspot. I've never had a blade with a sweetspot so huge! No week point, you can miss the center, it's almost the same. Spin. Actually, I never really thought that the blade could help with that... Boy, I was so wrong! With the same rubber, my topspin are much more efficient and spinny! Quality. Perfect, beautiful piece of wood!

This blade has incredible touch for a carbon blade, plenty of pop away from the table, and is just an all-round delight to play with. For those seeking a light blade that has none of the drawbacks of balsa and works with all conceivable rubbers i can't recommend this beauty highly enough.

Top notch quality blade as usual coming from Darker blades, It has control and speed at the same time, below fast compared to Sardius, but has way more control. For me, The only thing lacking is a thicker handle. I like thicker handle like that of Sardius but that's just me.

80g - D05 1.9 both sides : not enough speed. D05 2.1 : ball is flying long, then too fast. D09C 1.9 : too slow. D09C 2.1 not tested yet. I purchased this blade because the Hinoki thickness is in between Amultart and hinotec OFF+carbon. But strangely, I get almost similar results with Amultart and hinotec, but with pairing the same rubbers on Esteem, I get a totally different behavior. I came back to T05 2.1 as a comparison with TB ALC, and ball is flying too much. Mmmm I could not find the best rubber and thickness that will suit this blade. Maybe a T05H 1.9...not sure. So I cannot really rate this blade, because it is too much dependent on the rubbers and their thickness.

Quality, perfect, beautiful.