New Gearbox Release and High RPM Paddles

Author

Chris Olson
February 17, 2023

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What’s up, guys? Back with another edition of the newsletter. Before we dive in, would you mind taking another poll? I’d love to know where you prefer to listen to the podcast and why you choose that platform.

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Paddle recap

If you didn’t catch it yesterday, I reviewed the new CX14 Ultimates. This is Gearbox’s upgraded version of the original CX14. They enhanced the one vital flaw it had: Power. It still doesn’t hit as hard as the new thermoformed paddles, but it is a noticeable upgrade from the old CX14. It’s now $250, which is perhaps a questionable price, but that’s just paddles today. If you’re a Gearbox fan, I think you will be a fan of this paddle. If you didn’t love previous models, this paddle probably won’t change your mind. The paddle is currently up for pre-order.

Zane Navratil Signature Paddle

My hope is to have Zane’s paddle reviewed sometime next week if my schedule goes according to plan. I’m still in my testing phase, but my initial impressions after several playtests aren’t that promising…the paddle has a few flaws that I don’t like. The issues may be solvable from home, but I’ll have to test more to know for sure.

Side note…I’ve joked with Zane about his paddle looking ugly, so I went ahead and redesigned it in photoshop this morning for fun haha 😂. The current one has too many logos, upper case, and lower case text while having XR plastered everywhere. Simple is better.

Not the real design of Zane’s paddle. This is my own mockup.

I had Pickleball Will come on the channel to help me review the Revolin Pure Control. Originally we were going to have him do more reviews on my channel, but I realized he will grow much more doing it for himself, and I want to see my friends succeed. Will is an amazing content creator, so if you haven’t watched him or subscribed yet, go check it out.

As for the paddle, Revolin has a really cool mission, but when it comes to performance paddles…I don’t think they are there yet. They aren’t bad, but for $190 there are much better paddles for cheaper.

Paddle updates:

Well…my last newsletter was titled “Thermoforming is here to stay” I hope this statement is true because, at the moment, the future of it seems rocky. There are starting to be more and more reports of the paddles delaminating. This is where the face comes unglued from the core and causes the paddle to make a horrible noise when hitting and tends to make the paddle even more powerful.

All four companies that offer thermoforming (CRBN, Vatic, Legacy, SixZero) are having this issue. Now, it doesn’t seem to be a widespread issue like the Diadem Warrior was, but I haven’t heard of a paddle delaminating since the Warrior, and now every week, I’m getting a message about a thermoformed paddle delaminating. In fact, during my play testing for the SixZero reviews, my black diamond and double black diamond delaminated. That’s why the reviews are taking so long to finish. The SixZero’s play really well, though. I like them quite a bit, and I’m excited to review them.

All four companies have assured me that in March, this issue will be fixed moving forward. It sounds like it may just be the factory being lazy about the gluing process, and new measures have been put in place to prevent it from being an issue. I will keep a close eye on the situation and keep you updated. I don’t think people need to panic unless the March batch does the same thing.

The new RPM king is…

Paddle RPMs have gone up so much in the last year. The Power Air and Selkirk Labs products were the highest RPM paddles for most of last year, but recently I tested some paddles and was shocked by the results.

  • Volair Mach 1: 1941 RPM

  • Head Gravity LH: 1889 RPM

  • SixZero Black Diamond: 1927 RPM

  • Head Extreme Tour Max: 2070 RPM

Yes, you just read that correctly. The Head Extreme Tour Max is the first paddle I have tested to pass 2000 RPM. I was so shocked by this result that I triple-checked the result of the test. In fact, the next day, I went out again and retested it along with several other paddles. The restest result was 2018 RPM. Clearly it wasn’t a fluke. I haven’t gotten to playtest the Head Extreme Tour yet, so I have no idea how good the actual performance is, but I was not expecting a Head paddle to claim the top of my spin spreadsheet.

Of course, always use these results as a gauge for spin and not a hard rule. Different body mechanics may work better with certain paddles. Anything within the top 15 in my spreadsheet is going to be amazing for spin.

Latest podcasts

Since the last newsletter, our latest podcasts have become the most popular on all our platforms. Lea Jansen discussed her physical health, thoughts on Anna Leigh Waters, MLP, and much more. It’s a great episode.

With Jordan we discussed how he got into coaching, what makes a great coach, content creation, and improving at the game.