yesterday i had the pleasure of using AK's ES5Pro and Alpha Ghost. i took the opportunity to string two Revelations with the same string (Gosen R4X 110) and tension (24/24) and compared the resulting string job. i tried to do the same procedure the same. same pattern, same tension (24/24). the result was a little interesting. i did the ES5Pro first, i only managed to get the ping frequency of that 30min after. it was 1171Hz. the freshly strung from the Ghost was 1161Hz. immediately there is a slight difference (although AK claims that both machines are calibrated equal using his digital fish scale) so it appears that there is slightly more tension loss from the get go for the Ghost. and not only that, we have AK and another very experienced (10+/day) stringer present and both feel (and me) that the ping tail (resonance) of the racket coming from the ES5Pro sounds better, and the one from the Ghost sounds more dead. 18 hours later, the frequency of the one from ES5Pro was 1152Hz, and the ghost one was 1131Hz. so probably a 30Hz drop from fresh, and un-used. that's around 1lb, which is reasonable. today the ES5Pro is probably less lively than before though. so maybe the liveliness is from the completely fresh string? not sure. thoughts?
Not sure. Both machine offer 360 rotation. Both have a long travel to the gripper. Neither of them have a string raiser. (Ala Adidas) So they are fairly equal. What I didn't do was to measure the main string compression. However, the es5pro one came out around 4mm shorter.
The possible variables are: - clamp and clamp base quality. I can see more give/setback on the Ghost. - table stiffness. The es5pro feels stiffer than the Ghost. However, as mentioned I didn't measure the main compression not did I measure the head length before tensioning.
Could be that one machine allows more racket deformation than the other - you mentioned that the ES5 one came out shorter... maybe it's under a bit of N/S compression, and that carries the sound better and longer.
For the which one plays better question. I let a local coach try them both out. He liked the one from the Ghost better! He think the tension is higher and less vibration! I tried them myself. I think there is slightly more resonance on the es5pro one. But honestly I think the es5pro one has better bounce to it. I need to spend more time with them and get more different opinions. Unfortunately I think ultimately how well some string comes out might end up being partly personal preference.
If you strung the same racket again with the same strings and same tension on the Protech 8, would the ping frequency be the same ? Maybe it'd come out the same as the one you strung on the Ghost previously, since the difference isn't very big!
no idea. coz i don't have access to protec 8. i think what you are getting at is that the sample population isn't big enough. which i do agree. however, we have to do with what we can get.
Well yeah, but moreso that some factors other than the machine may have influenced the ending result. While the machine probably has something to do with it, things like the time it took to string, some strings being pulled for a longer time than others (different time between weaves) etc. may influence the ending results. And since the difference between both results is very small, small things like this could explain the difference.
The biggest factor you over looked is the racquet. No two racquets are the same. Do the experiment again and this time flip flop the racquets (opposite for last time) and see if the results differ.
Also, next time use string from a reel so that they are from the same lot made the same time. Packs of string could have been made months apart and there are variances.
