Yinhe Big Dipper

This is a great rubber. Absolutely incredible performance for the money. You get a semi-tacky, elastic topsheet on a modern porous sponge. On lighter, shorter strokes you get a lot of the advantages of Chinese tacky rubbers - excellent short game, big spin on brush strokes, controllable speed. On bigger shots, when the sponge is engaged, the results are just brilliant. Medium-high throw, good speed, and absolutely massive spin. I use the 38 degree sponge, which maximises this hybrid feel. The results are very much like a modern tensor when playing aggressive attacking strokes. Harder sponges dial this behaviour down a fair bit. The 40 degree sponge gives more of a classic Chinese hard-sponge feel, more linear, lower throw. The only downside I find with the 38 degree is the non-linear behaviour. When the sponge kicks in, Big Dipper gets lively. If you play aggressively though, this gives a lot of advantages.

I tested the 39 degree variant as I gathered, this is not the trues chinese style version. I tried it boosted and unboosted. The rubber cut down to butterfly headsize is heavy (more than 50 gramms). When boosted it is even heavier. I use Euro/Jap rubbers an wanted to try some chinese FH rubbers. This rubber is a very decent equipment, there is tempo there is spin. Naturally serve receiving and ball handling is easier with the slightly tacky topsheet. Overall on FH most loops demanded much more effort to be fast and spinny at the same time. Dropping was easier, but the main downside of this rubber were smashes. It was really hard to get them over the net, and because you have a good touch with this rubber you can force many high balls, that are more easy to smash, then loop to win. Overall I find this rubber a good, very good H3 alternative, from the H3 neo this is an upgrade and it is a substitute to higher variants of the H3. Also please consider Palio HK 1997 Gold.

I'm using this 2.2mm H38 Red version on forehand on a 729 V6 blade. I usually have a DHS Hurricane 3 NEO 2.2mm H39 on my forehand, but lately I'm starting to loop too long with this. Perhaps more often when playing on hard wooden floors etc. So I tried this instead. It's almost as spinny as the H3N, so brush looping feels almost the same. The difference was that they didn't go long so often any more. The feeling when making slower strokes etc. is better. More balls on the table here as well. It might even be a bit lighter than the H3N, so It's a big + for me using this rubber instead of the H3N. Flat hits and smashes are better with Big Dipper as well. Update 191104: The DHS NEO Skyline TG2 (2.15mm, H38) is about the same as this BD in many ways. Skyline is a bit faster, but Big Dipper has way more control in all strokes. Great if you are a brush looper away from the table (and close). Weight cut, H38: 45-53g. H40:50g. H40 uncut with plastics on both sides: 71g. H38 uncut with plastics on both sides: 63g. Significant difference in behaviour between H38 and H40. Not so much effect when looping with the H40. The H38 is better in all aspects so far. I have trained one session with the H40, but changing back to H38 for now.

39deg black: 72g uncut and 56g cut. Factory tune+glue option. Great FH rubber, not so tacky. Excellent in smash, loop and block. Serves are not so spinny but still ok. I can agree it's a hybrid, something like mix of euro and chinese rubbers. I like it from the first hit - suits my play style well :-)

Very hard to smash. Very hard to make a loop far from the table. You must spin the ball instead of throw the ball to the table. It will suit an intermediate spinner. A tacky top sheet like mostly Chinese rubber. It makes your chop serve with backspin very heavy and spinny. Low trajectory. it needs more power to do a topspin to cross the ball.