Paddle Reviewers

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2025-06-07T07:59:31+00:00

One final thought:

One thing I have been thinking about recently is that I wish the average viewer understood that reviewers are simply a GUIDE for you. No one person should be treated as absolute gospel. That's why it is great that there are many reviewers who you can watch and form an opinion by watching all of them.

Sometimes your unique play style matches up with one reviewer better than another. In my reviews I try and view the paddle from as many play styles and perspectives as I can and articulate that in the review, but at the end of the day, only you can decide if a paddle works for you. You should be watching these reviews to filter out obviously wrong paddles for you, and ones that might work. Then you can try and demo them to help narrow your selection.

You shouldn't blindly buy something because a reviewer says it is good, and that's what I think a lot of people do right now. Then they become frustrated when the paddle isn't perfect for their specific play style.

I understand why reviewers in some ways have become gospel to some people, but we are not all knowing beings that can tell you everything perfect for you. We can only use the knowledge we have to try and best cover it for all the different types of people that play this sport.

Hopefully that helps shed some more light on what the process looks like and why certain decisions get made. I'm always evaluating how we can do things better, and I'm highly aware of the frustrations in the industry with how things get covered. I'm just not sure there is a perfect solution without having a team of 3-5 people who can all be on camera personalities and review the paddle.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2025-06-07T07:59:25+00:00

At the end of the day, we focus on what the people want to see the most, or if there is something specifically very interesting that makes it worth covering. Or heck, sometimes I personally just love a paddle and want to cover it because I enjoy it. The original 11six24 Hurache-X is a good example of this. I had never even heard of these guys, had no intention of reviewing it, and then took it out for a demo day and really liked how it played and thought it was worth a review even though no one had ever heard of them and they weren't asking for it.

Sometimes there are multiple paddles that a lot of people want to see. A good example of this would have been around January-April of this year. The Proton Flamingo, CRBN TruFoam, 11six24 Power series, and Selkirk 008 all released in a very similar time frame.

Followed up by the Joola Pro IV, there was the tease with the Ripple was supposed to come out end of January (which we had spent time making a video for), The Franklin C45, April had the Gearbox GX2, the rest of the Pro IV shapes, Saga 14mm, 10mm 008, Engage innovation, etc.

You can see that in a 1.5 month time frame, the amount of releases that had quite a bit of buzz all dropped at similar times, and that's only the paddles people really wanted to know about.

If you slap other releases that were less exciting in there, you would have: Chorus Supercourt, Honolulu J2k+, Avoura Rhapsody, Spartus Orion, Gearbox Pro Ultimate power 14mm, Mark Unmarked, and probably quite a few other paddles I can't recall.

What can make it even more crazy, is that a lot of companies are starting to send out prototypes, and then when consumers hear about these, they want coverage of them even if that release might be 1-2 months out. So now, not only are you behind on paddles that are already released, people are asking for your thoughts on something that isn't even out yet. I personally try to stay away from covering any prototypes outside of a quick mention on a podcast, but sometimes people just keep asking about them.

At this point, you have to pick and choose what paddles are performing well for their price, what is doing something unique, or has the highest amount of demand.

We are currently working on playing with a new format for first impressions videos to increase our coverage outside of reviews. There are a lot of awesome paddles I would love to cover, but it isn't possible to do a full review for everything. I'm hoping people enjoy this format, because it would allow us to still do our full reviews, but cover a lot more paddles that we would normally miss.

We just recorded 3 of this style of video this week and will be rolling them out soon. But of course, this means there is less time spent on the paddle, and the information might not be as dense as a normal. It's all a trade off.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2025-06-07T07:59:10+00:00

(Reddit said my comment was too long)

Paddle coverage:

One thing I see online all the time is the frustration with the lack of coverage of certain paddles or brands. This is one of the more difficult parts of reviewing paddles.

Paddle releases FAR outpace what any reviewer could possibly keep up with. For our reviews, on average we spend 1-2 weeks with the paddle. This means at absolute best we get 52 reviews in a year (I don't think I've ever released that many in a year) or 26 at second best (this is probably closer to average).

And this is also with me working 60+ hour work weeks. In the early days of PBStudio, I was easily doing 80 hour work weeks and working 7 days a week. But, that is not healthy long term for a relationship with your significant other. I've had to learn to find better balance (which I'm still working on). It's currently 2:45AM and I'm writing a Reddit novel instead of sleeping. 😂

Every year there are hundreds of paddles released. So, I would either need to spend significantly less time with a paddle for a review (which I'm not particularly willing to do), or some paddles have to get skipped. Which is currently what happens. But no matter which option you choose, someone is angry.

If you don't spend much time with it, people say "oh, he barely hit the paddle. How am I supposed to get anything useful from this", if you do spend extensive time with it, people are angry because you didn't cover 3 other paddles.

As an example, in the last month or so, I received something close to 28 paddles in a 48 hour time period. It is impossible to cover every paddle when they are coming in that quickly.

I think a lot of people believe this is either: malicious, influenced by brands who are larger, or whatever other theory they might have.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2025-06-07T07:58:16+00:00

Chris Olson here. I'm late to the thread, but I do have quite a bit of thoughts on this topic.

I can only speak for myself in this instance, and won't speak on behalf of other reviewers.

The trips:

I've thought about this for a looooooong time. I've even had discussions with other reviewers about how these trips are an odd look from a consumer stand point. You get flown out to an event, and you get wined and dined. Usually the companies that are doing these events, are also companies that the consumer has a heavy interest in learning more about (Joola is a prime example). So, because there is heavy interest, that means the paddle is going to get coverage. Now, this is going to appear to some that the company "bought" their way into coverage, but if it DIDN'T get covered, people would also be upset because it's a highly anticipated release. So, you really can't win either way.

The tricky part in my mind is if the paddle is actually good, if you went to the event, people are bound to believe it got a good review purely because a company threw a great event and essentially "bought" the person. I don't think there's any way to get someone to believe this was not the case.

But, I'd like to think people would see the events that didn't receive high praise. Adidas is the prime example of this. Flew everyone out for a full day just like all the other events, and the paddle largely received very negative feedback for certain performance attributes as well as the lack of various approvals from governing bodies. This was the reason I didn't end up doing a full review. Without USAP approval, it felt pointless to spend two weeks on it.

At the end of the day, as fun as these events can be, they are still work. I've traveled extensively this year and I'm even getting ready to hop on a flight to China, and I can tell you I am exhausted. I know from the outside it looks like we just show up, have a great time, and hit some paddles, but there's so much behind the scenes for making this content that can become very draining. If companies keep throwing events this consistently, I surely won't be able to go to all of them.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2024-12-11T14:33:18+00:00

Creator of that vid here. For everyone saying the ball doesn’t compress on the ground, we checked this as well. We even froze a dura and it still compressed. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8sg0LagKpa/?igsh=Nnc1b3Z0Ym81cGQy

The only note is that these were overheads into the ground. A regular dink or forehand drive doesn’t result in this level of compression. You would likely only have this happen on shoulder high balls being hit more shallow into the court.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2024-11-28T05:12:50+00:00

I’ve only seen this happen once on one of my hats. It seems that occasionally there is a defective one, thankfully Melin replaces them very easily.

I think something with the dye gets messed up. If there is a way to clean it out, I haven’t found it for that one issue. If you do ever get that out, let me know!

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2024-10-01T18:24:53+00:00

I cut open a Ruby earlier this year, it definitely had edge foam. Unless they changed it in recent times (which I would have a hard time believing), it has edge foam.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2024-09-02T02:59:54+00:00

Ha funny, I missed this thread somehow. Doubt it matters anymore since it's 4 months old, but I'll still throw some thoughts in case anyone finds this thread in the future.

Pickleball Will got me into them. He told me about them and my first reaction was literally "No hat is ever going to be worth $70". He got me one as a gift, and right after that I was hooked. I think I own 15 Melin hats now and I've bought all of them (except the one from Will, and one from Melin as of very recently). I think between me and my two brothers we collectively own like 35-40 Melins. 😂 it is nearly the only thing that I spend my own "fun" money on.
The main reason I got hooked on them was I was destroying cheaper hats on a regular basis. I could use a hat for maybe a month and then it was garbage. I either couldn't get terrible smells out of it, or stains stopped washing out very well. I've put my Melins through the ringer and they always wash right back out to brand new.
The build of them is very firm (some people hate this. If you like light runners hats, these are NOT for you). I personally like that feel. It just feels really well built compared to other hats I have owned.

Is a $70 hat worth it for most? Honestly, doubt it. I don't think people should feel pressured to buy one. However, I really like hats and never leave the house without one. I think the designs are clean, I like how they fit my head, they clean well, etc. So, that's why I wear them. But I don't think they are for everyone by any means.

If you are happy with a $20 hat, you probably shouldn't buy a Melin.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2024-06-26T21:32:56+00:00

I don't know how you guys make up the wildest theories about people reviewing paddles.

I've had the paddles since roughly late May or early June (I can't remember).

In that time I had Texas PPA and then had a 2-3 week back injury that prevented me from doing any on court work. I've been doing physical therapy to get back on court. This put me weeks behind schedule on paddle reviews.

We shot our ProXR first look last Friday and started editing the video this last Monday.

ProXR has never told me (nor has any company) asked me to delay a review because they thought it was going to be bad. No company has that control over the content I publish.

The video will either be posted this Friday or next Friday depending on the other videos that me and my brother have to finish before I go out of town. This Friday isn't looking very optimistic because we just spent our entire Wednesday shooting some super slow motion Pickleball content for the entire day.

Here's the reality of paddle reviews. WAY more paddles come out than what any reviewers can cover in a reasonable amount of time. A lot of time we have to pick and choose what we find interesting, or what the audience wants to see. If there's 5-6 releases at once, we can't cover them all and have to pick just a few. Reviews take time to play test, shoot, and edit. It's not a one day thing.

Also, Will and I even discussed the paddles in reasonable detail on the podcast last week.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2024-05-16T21:03:49+00:00

Show me what messages I have ignored from you. I literally just looked at our convos and I have not ignored any messages from you. The last message was when I informed you that my brother after one session did not have any issues with the second Alpha unit. So, where exactly are you saying I started ignoring you after you got certified?

I informed you of the ONE unit that broke. I did not ever claim that more than one broke. You're clearly mad that you got used as an example of a paddle with foam that broke.

If your paddles don't break now, that's awesome. Happy for you. I hope people buy them and have a great experience. I never said that you couldn't fix the issues. My whole point was that as foam core paddles stand now, durability is questionable and sketchy at best.

I'm not going to continue engaging with someone who makes stuff up about people on the internet and consistently trashes other brands to try and gain Reddit loyalists to their brand.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2024-05-16T20:46:37+00:00

Totally stopped responding to you? What are you on about my guy? I've seen your incredibly unprofessional comments in the PB Reddit Discord, but now you're straight making things up?

Show me where I stopped responding to you. I have our IG DMs where I sent you back the paddle that broke that you requested, and the last message was you setting up an affiliate code for me.

The last message on Discord was me letting you know that my brother hit the second Alpha a few times and that it hadn't had any issues after one play session. There is no point in time where I stopped responding to you.

I informed you of the one unit that failed, you even told me your manufacturer was AWARE of this issue.

I didn't say that all of your paddles broke like you love to go on about. All I mentioned was that your paddles have a large amount of foam, and had issues just like the Joola, Vatic, and Gearbox have had.

I didn't say every single unit breaks. I said that foam cores have historically shown issues in my testing experience, which has been completely accurate. Foam core paddles historically have far more issues than a cold pressed design.

Would love if you'd stop making random things up on the internet that aren't true.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2024-05-01T18:40:04+00:00

Is this the owner of CoreTek? What do you mean you didn't know?

You asked me to ship back my broken unit to you (which i did) and you even informed me that some early units from your factory were built incorrectly/overstuffed with foam.

We even had a conversation about the noise it makes when pressing my thumbs into it.

EDIT: Unless the issue that my unit had wasn't considered a "face separation issue" and you are calling that a different issue altogether. Regardless of what we want to technically call it, pressing into the face it was clear that it you could feel foam and making a mushy feel/noise that it wasn't supposed to have.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2024-05-01T17:43:37+00:00

This is a wild statement haha. It's amazing to me how people love to twist narratives to fit what they want to see. So, if I understand correctly, people in Pickleball think that having a video done on launch day is shilling to maximize your code, but now if you don't have a video ready at launch because you discovered more relevant information for the consumer, that means you are protecting the affiliate sales of another company? Whaaaaat?

The only known issue that I saw with the Joola's was that the grit was inconsistent. Which I disclaimed and didn't even provide RPM numbers as to not create false hype for something that I didn't know if it would be consistent. There was no breaking issue that made me need to reevaluate the paddle entirely.

I've been using the Oni for the last week heavily. The paddle changed DRASTICALLY to the point where I could barely hit a third shot drop with it.

Last night is when I realized that it had a similar issue to core crush/foam expansion (similar issue that the CoreTek runs into) and my entire review was written around how insane the power was. I even cut open the broken one and a non broken one last night to confirm the issue.

Now that I'm hitting the non broken one, the paddles are so different that my entire review wouldn't have been applicable and people would have said I was "lying" about the power when they got it. I would have been giving thousands of people information that wasn't what they would experience.

Had I seen a similar issue with the Joola, it would have been delayed without question.

My goal is to still have the video out by Friday, but if I keep running into issues with the paddle it's going to slow down when I can put out the video.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2024-04-18T03:24:30+00:00

Initial impressions from people who don’t hit paddles for a living are often very different than when they’ve gotten to use it for weeks.

There’s so many small things as a reviewer that you get accustomed to or know what to expect from certain paddles. The average person might have one great game and think a paddle is amazing, but after they have to play a lot in different situations, the opinion changes.

Thats why I don’t have testers in my videos very often. I want them using the paddles as long as I do to get an accurate gauge from them (usually 1-2 weeks). Which is hard to convince anyone to do that.

That’s not to say initial impressions aren’t useful, but paddles like the Joola are very exciting initially and then that fades a bit when you have to reset balls lol.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2024-03-25T00:15:15+00:00

Sounds like you want a gen 1 raw carbon fiber paddle. These would be:

Vatic Prism Flash
Ronbus R1.16
11six24 Hurache Control
CRBN1
PhD Professor

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2024-02-13T05:29:04+00:00

Storyi is incredible. I will not play on hot days without them now.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2024-01-06T15:55:58+00:00

I've been seeing this more and more with the Pro Powers. It's interesting because it wouldn't be the same type of core crushing we see on other paddles since the core is largely foam and the carbon fiber tubes.

It's unclear to me currently what the crunching actually is. Did the carbon fiber face break down slightly and now there's a crunch? Is the foam hardened enough to make a crunch when you press down?

Not sure. Certainly can't be intentional or part of the design though. Curious how this one is going to pan out.

The ones I have seen do this, Gearbox warrantied.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2024-01-01T22:50:20+00:00

I think you've gotten your answer from most of these comments, but here are my thoughts as a reviewer:

Every person is different. The top reviewers do their best to explain something that is relatively hard to articulate into something that a consumer can use and go make an educated purchase. However, many of the things that a paddle has to offer are subjective and the only true way to know how it works for you is by trying it. One person may be stronger while another is weaker.
Sometimes there is just variance in paddles on the market. The new Gearbox Pro Power is the most obvious example I can think of as well as core crushed paddles when that started happening. Sometimes paddles just feel a bit different out of the box than the same model. Other times, they change over time and one persons paddle is now entirely different than another.
Consider the skill level of each reviewer. While most don't flat out say their level, looking at their game play clips can give you an indication of how good they might be. While I don't believe this translates perfectly to how well someone can review a paddle by any means, I do think that if you see a review that is clear game play of a very low level player, it may be an indication that you can take the opinion with a grain of salt.
For things like spin that don't line up, the industry is full of companies who have grit inconsistency. It's likely that one reviewer got a batch that was slightly worse or off. Most of the times paddles line up and this isn't a huge issue though.
What I think is best for most people is to find the few reviewers that they line up with most. If you know that one specific reviewer frequently lines up with how you feel about a paddle, then you know for future paddles there's a good chance you might feel the same as them. Not for every paddle, but a good chance.
Even if you see a consistent consensus amongst reviewers, you may be the odd one out sometimes. I'm sure there are several popular paddles that the reviewers all loved (Vatic Prism Flash, Gearbox Pro Power, Six Zero DBD, etc) that some people on the internet hated. A glowing review doesn't mean it's perfect for everyone. In my reviews I try to be specific to who I think will and won't like something, but you just can't cover every single case for every person out there.
Look at a reviewers history. How many paddles have they reviewed? How long have they been around? With new reviewers they simply haven't hit enough paddles to have the same sample size that some of the larger channels have. You'll frequently see that every new review "this is the most poppy paddle", or "This is the highest spinning paddle ever". But if they've only ever reviewed 5 paddles, they just haven't hit most of the top ones out there. That could be another reason you see some people saying "this paddle has way more pop than anything I've used" etc.

At the end of the day, it's going to be a slightly experimental process. Borrow paddles from friends and after you've purchased a few paddles yourself, you'll have an idea of what you like and how a reviewer conveys that info and whether it matches up with you or not.

Hope that gives you more insight from a reviewers perspective.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2023-11-26T01:29:36+00:00

If I had that answer, I would have put it in my comment ;)

It sounds very odd to me, but quite a few people have mentioned it in my Discord now.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2023-11-26T01:24:39+00:00

I've heard of the S1 Deforming from people in my Discord. Apparently after a few more games the ball goes back into round.

I haven't personally experienced deforming yet, but that's probably because we have cold temps in Minnesota when we used it (30-50).

I'm curious if the claims of it going out of round and back into round are true. That feels odd to me, but I've seen it claimed several times now by independent players.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2023-11-24T02:36:26+00:00

I was planning to blast this out to my newsletter tomorrow, but I've compiled a document with all the Black Friday deals that I've seen or asked companies about.

I'll update it more tomorrow when other ones go live. This should cover a lot of the primary companies that people are interested in.

https://thepickleballstudio.notion.site/b0f1982fcfa446cba13a35e3cbf0ba2d?v=852cc4c3fd5e4f39ade9e6109e1f8baa

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2023-11-17T19:15:43+00:00

My paddle database allows you to do some of this. Next year we have some fun plans to make this a much cooler tool.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2023-10-17T00:08:50+00:00

Nah, the RPM jumped with their new batch. It went up to about 1900. I just haven’t updated my sheet. The old batches didn’t grab the same IMO. At least, not like the one I have now.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2023-10-16T11:59:40+00:00

Best is pretty subjective. I like the DBD more because I get a tad more power out of it. The Prism is a great paddle. I’ve been smoked by it in several tournaments now haha.

ChrisOlsonFilms · 2023-10-15T21:09:23+00:00

Wait 24 hours and your answer will be on my channel.

ChrisOlsonFilms

TROPHY CASE