XIOM Ignito blade

The Ignito is one of three of the Xiom's Novus Carbon series. The 5 ply blade is made of Kiso Hinoki - Energy Carbon - Kiri - Energy Carbon - Kiso Hinoki at 6.2-6.3mm thickness.

Here's an excerpt of the description of the new Energy Carbon material I got from Xiom:
"Energy Carbon of Ignito is new material. It looks like ordinary Carbon. But, it is softer than normal Carbon though it isn't classified as Soft Carbon. Many makers are selling Soft Carbon blades in which Carbon Fleece or Uniaxial Carbon is used. In general, Soft Carbon means uni-axial Carbon. Carbon fleece is another name of uni-axial Carbon. But, Energy Carbon isn't such material. We just made it softer and reduced the internal energy loss. Less energy loss means that more energy is transferred to ball at impact. So we named it as 'Energy' Carbon."



The made and finishing of the blade is superb and very smooth. The only flaw I see is the cut on the logo on the handle is not very straight, but it's a very minuscule overlook. If I were to rate it on the finishing/make of the blade, I would rate it at 99% (-1% for the finishing of the logo area). Now, if you look at the picture, there's a location on the head where the color of the grains/head are different. About a little left from the middle part, going long from handle to the tip of the head, the small section's color is whiter/paler than the rest. Same place on the back side also, but smaller. I was going to deduct some points of these as well, but I'm not too sure because I don't know much about wood/wood grains. I don't know whether these are their natural condition, manufacturing mistake, or something else.



The head is about the average size, the size according to Xiom's specification are: 158x150.2 while the handle are 100x34x24 for the FL (which I have). First thing I noticed when holding it was how nice and comfortable it is on my hand. The handle is wide and thick enough, about as good as my Hurricane blades FL handles. It's certainly wider and thicker than the Korbel FL & Wavestone FL handles which I also have. The head is about the same as my Hurricanes & Korbel blades.



The weight quoted for me is 83.5g but when I weighed it using my dad's weight for his medicines, it weighed at 84g. Close enough to the quoted weight.



I've been playing with this blade for one week (four times at about 2-3 hours each time). The rubbers I put on the blade are: Hurricane 3 Provincial 39 degree and Sriver EL Maximum. The H3P felt medium hard on the blade while the EL felt soft (too soft for my liking). I played with this setup for 1 night. I then switched the EL with Prashida Tokyo 2 (which are a little bit harder than the EL – played with this setup for 3 nights). Tokyo 2 felt a little nicer, not as soft (but still feel a bit too soft). So I would think that a little harder rubber would do well on this blade. I might try it with Sriver L later on.



Okay, here's the very concise summary: After playing one week with Ignito, I decided to compare it with my Korbel, which has H3P 39 degrees with Cermet 2.1 on. At Sunday after playing about 2 hours with the Ignito I switched blade. I picked up the Korbel and played with it to make out the differences. After playing with Korbel for 5-10 minutes, I put it down and played with the Ignito for the rest of the day. I don't know for sure, but when I used the Korbel, it felt awful. Hits and loops were terrible and felt terrible as well. I lost confidence after about 10 minutes playing with Korbel and not getting the good feel I used to have with it.

Now, this is just a preliminary comparison. I now have put the same rubbers on the two blades. H3P 39 degrees + Sriver EL Maximum on both Ignito & Korbel. Just haven't had the chance to play with both to make the comparison just yet. Maybe next week because this week I'm pretty busy with the preparation for my cousin's wedding this weekend. And because this week I'm planning to play exclusively with my Hurricane King blade fitted with H3P + Tokyo 2 PT. I have been using the HK at my training sessions (twice a week @ 1 hour) and play with the Ignito 4 times a week @ 2-3 hours. But this week I plan to use the HK only. Next week I'll continue with the testing and comparing of the Ignito-Korbel (playing/switching both blades on the same nights).


Okay, going back to the Ignito. Here are the preliminary/first impression I have on the blade:

It feels good when I'm hitting. It doesn't have as much vibration as the Korbel and it has that crisp/sharp feel when I hit. I feel more confident hitting when using this blade. On loops, I feel that I could make fast/loop kill shots which are low very easily with it. Even faster and lower than when I use the HK using the same H3P rubber. It does lobs and drive/control loops too, but the easiness and fastness of the fast loops really impresses me.

The blade like I said feels crisp/sharp while provide good amount of dwell time for me to impart good amount of spin on the ball. I feel the blade has low throw. The ease of looping low loop kills and also when I hit and drive I could put the ball low and short and even long but low easily with it. When I used the EL for that one night of playing. I noticed that several people got tricked several times by the amount of under spin I made while chopping and serving than usual when I used EL before. That is, the under spin is heavier than when I usually use EL before.

One of the downside I feel is that when I moved back far from the table. I have to exert more energy than when I use HK. Ignito having low throw doesn't help when playing at long distance away from the table because I need to use more power for it to clear the net. Either that or I open up the blade and make a drive/lob instead.

Blocks are effortless.

I usually don't smash on FH, so I don't know how it does altering between loops and smashes. I smash on the BH and even with soft sponge rubber like EL/Tokyo 2 (I feel the rubbers much softer on this blade than when I use the rubbers on Korbel), when I smash, it generates good speed and power. Enough to make the kill.

I was playing a couple of nights with the Wavestone before I got the Ignito. I think it has some similarity in feel. Wavestone is faster I think but feels less sturdy/stable. The Ignito has better balance and overall gives the more solid feeling. Maybe I should do a head to head comparison with Wavestone instead of Korbel. That way, I'll be comparing both composite blades. I was planning to use the Korbel just because it's more popular blade and that it would be easier to get the comparison from that perspective (as a common standard). What do you guys think?