Our excellent reviewer, Oak Gast, is back with a Kirschbaum Super Smash Orange Review. An interesting string, which I know Nikola Aracic is a fan of.
You can check out Kirschbaum Super Smash Orange from our friends at Tennis Warehouse, Tennis Only or Amazon.
Kirschbaum Super Smash Orange Review – Excellent value!
If you are looking for a good value on a polyester string (especially for a reel) then look no further than Super Smash Orange from Kirschbaum, available in a 1.28 or 1.23 gauge.
Super Smash is a surprisingly comfortable poly despite its relatively high stiffness rating. In addition, it plays much more spin-friendly than its 5.3 spin potential rating suggests. While tension maintenance may not necessarily be the “best” available, the stringbed settles in at a highly playable range after the initial drop, allowing for good acceleration when driving the ball into the court. In more spin-oriented racquets, Super Smash allows for very satisfying spin-based shots, offering an extraordinary plushness when pronating through a shot.
Due to its playable nature, Super Smash is a viable alternative to the age-old Luxilon ALU Power. In fact, in a 1.23 gauge, Tennis Warehouse University specs are nearly identical to that of ALU in a 1.25.
String performance in the lab
Alu Power vs Super Smash
As such, Super Smash can be understood to offer a similar level of performance to ALU but with some added benefits. The orange polyester dye plays more lively than gray polyesters typically, which holds true for Super Smash. The result is a high-performance poly that mimics the liveliness of some other polys that have lower control levels comparatively. It plays quite well in a hybrid setup, in particular with a softer synthetic gut, allowing for plush contact and great depth simultaneously.
Groundstrokes
On both wings, Super Smash invites players to go for larger swings and more aggressive play. The dwell time on the stringbed is useful for hitting through the ball, but it is not too much dwell time, sometimes leading to a “muted” feeling. The string responds appropriately depending on the shot attempted, allowing for good stability on flat drives and heavy spin on topspin shots or slices. The result is a string that will offer premium performance to sensitive players, encouraging better depth and solid contact.
Volleys
For volleys, the Super Smash is spin-friendly enough to shape every volley you might need to hit. Additionally, it is plenty stable to block and punch through most shots at the net without feeling harsh upon impact. The plushness offered gives enough capability to redirect heavy pace with a larger timing window.
Serves
Serves with Super Smash certainly live up to the name of the string. The ability to lay down flat or spin serves is welcome, and the string is lively enough to encourage going for bigger serves. However the absorption amount on the serve feels ample, giving players a large timing window with this particular shot as well. In a hybrid setup, serving with Super Smash is a dreamy experience, consistent and lively.
Great review. And honestly I’m with you in terms of this being one of the goats in terms of underrated strings. I have about half a reel of the 1.28 mm. I meant to buy the 1.23 lol but goofed up at the cart. Still works fine. I’d be using this or red code when I can’t get razor code on sale.
I feel like I can’t miss when using this string. If I string it at 52 it hits fine. At 45 – also fine. Haha. It feels like a string that really performs until it breaks which I love. Great work!
Do you believe it is a better overall string than restring zero?
What kind of hybrid setup did You try it in?
I did the same error when ordering, hope the 1,28 will not be too stiff
Will it also suit 18×20 control racket like TF40 if I want more spin? Or would you suggest something else?
Really interested in trying this one. Nikola is very much hyping these strings. What tension range is best used with this one? Planning on using it on the Pro Staff X v14. All in all I didn’t see any real criticism of the string outside mediocre tension retention.
This is my brother’s string of choice, in 1.28mm. He’s been using it for a couple of year’s now and has like 3 reels stocked. For some reason, here in Argentina we’ve some deep connections with Kirschbaum as we’ve had many professional players endorsing some of their strings like Gaudio and Cañas (they both used Super Smash) in the early and mid 2000 and even today with Cerundolo (Max power 1.25).
I currently play with a Tecnifibre TF 40 305 16×19 and personally I didn’t enjoy playing with Super Smash Orange as I felt it was too lovely and powerful for me and therefore not providing me with sufficient control. I’m more of a low-power/control-oriented and spin friendly strings kind of person and that’s why I did enjoy playing with Max Power. However after testing some other brands I’ve switched to Confidential (1.25), which was my favorite out of other Solinco strings like Hyper-G (regular and soft) and Tour Bite (regular and rough). I like a lot the control, spin and tension maintenance that Confidential provides but I think It falls a bit short when having to get out of a defending position. I’ve tried lowering the tension but the trade-off didn’t feel ok.
What I’ve been trying out successfully so far Is a hybrid set up with Kirschbaum Super Smash Orange in 1.28mm in the mains at 56lbs and Confidential in 1.25mm in the verticals at 54 and it just feels great. I might’ve lost a hair of spin generation but overall control feels almost the same as with a full-bed or Confidential and I can feel that extra help of Super Smash Orange when being attacked.
Interesting about Kirschbaum being popular in Argentina!