Yinhe Venus V-16

I was suprized, why is there no review on this blade, so I ordered one. As from a chinese manufacturer I set my standards for a wider range, as I expect a bit bigger variety in the production of a blade type. This particular V-16 blade tries to be a substitute of the famous Michael Maze blade from Butterfly. Let's see. Weight should be around 85 mine is 92,4. Thickness should be 5,9 mm, mine is 5,94 mm. I measured the veeners under a microscope and they are quite uniform thick at the head of the blade, there is a bigger variety at the handle. The surface veener was lacques and repolished in the factory, nice. The whole composition of the blade and the materials used seems a quality work. No trimming of carbon and kevlar fibers on the edges. So manufacturing seems nice, even in weight department Butterfly can vary 4g from the given value. Tempo and general sound of the blade seems an OFF+. The blade has a nice feeling. Ball feedback is really good and scales well with power. The soft touch is similar like the real Maze blade. The speed I think is a bit more, but it is very linear and adjustable. Dropping is piece of cake no matter if it is passive or punch drop. Looping is very dinamic with a fine touch. When smashing you can feel the ball and you can achieve very good kill shots. Ball placement is quite easy, the blade is a bit bouncy, but the rubber slows it to minimum. I believe both hard sponge rubbers and soft sponge rubbers are good for this blade. Many people say that they bought different pieces of the same model, well I believe mine is a bit heavier and a bit faster, then the average ideal model. Handle is very similar to the TB series. Overall all I can say this blade is a very nice clone of Michael Maze, around 80-90%. UPDATE: Tried with MAXXX 500 and T05 both sides, was not disappointed, a very nice offensive blade! It is comparable to fancy priced models!

Amazing blade in very attractive price. Usualy I use Yinhe Pro01 92g, fantastic blade which is a Viscaria clone. Few of my friends and my coach use Viscaria, and V16 feels exactly like my coach blade, same high sound, same sort of hard crispy feeling. The blade is fast, but control is very acceptable, sort push, serve receive are very confident, but you don't want to play passive game with this blade, you want to attack every long, or higher ball and counter attack everything. My Yinhe V16 weight 85g, the handle is so good, different shape than Viscaria or Pro01, but very comfortable, not too thin. I tested few rubbers on this blade, but Rakza 7 bh and Friendship Battle ll fh works perfect. If you have some skills, if you like chinese tacky rubbers on fh you won't be disappointed.

Stiffer than Viscaria, and also harder (though the outer layer in V16 is limba, it's still harder than Viscaria's koto outer, as confirmed by the higher pitched sound when you hit your nail on the blade). Being stiffer, this blade is slower than Viscaria in the top gear, and at the same time bouncier in the low gear. Lower throw than Viscaria. It also has very little dwell time. This is the biggest problem of this blade: so little dwell time in the low gear means your first loop will lack spin. However, this blade makes a lot sense with Chinese rubbers like H3, H8, Tg2, Tg3, which are not very reactive. Viscaria makes even more sense, but this is a cheaper solution.

This is a fast blade. I have just put a boosted Dianch D rubber on the forehand side and a Tenergy 64 on the backhand side. The forehand side is a wonderful combination. The loops are perfect and blocks are effortless. But the combination for the backhand side was too fast at the beginning and I missed some punch backhand attacks, though I got used to the combination after a while. The build quality is high. The wood is sanded smooth. The handle is well made and the blade is overall worth the price. It has the feeling of a premium blade. Update after three months: The blade is too fast for fast rubbers. The combination of this blade with Tenergy 64 was very hard to control. I still miss a lot of backhand smashes. But it goes perfectly with Chinese-type rubbers.

Ishida and Dominus7 are right 100%.This is a vey good blade for attack and old style allround players. Has a high trow angle. It is very easy to loop and topsin with hard rubber as DHS Hurricane. 3 Neo. This blade is on the same level with another expensive blades. If you have the curiosity to make a blind test you will be very surprised about the quality of this blade. This blade will never disapointed you.