Review DHS C8 long pimple rubber

I testing the C8 red 1.0mm on my Stiga Energy wood today. My main comparison is to my favourite Galaxy 955 0.6mm, on the same same blade.

First impressions: The pimple are quite firm and stiff, a lot more than the other DHS LP Cloud & Fog III. Pimple are fairly tall and skinny, probably close to maximum aspect ratio. It has a 1mm orange sponge, which feels quite firm.
The pimple feel quite grippy when you run your finger over them The sheet looks of good quality.



Testing the rubber:

In general this rubber has very good control, despite the fact that it had a 1.0mm sponge.

Return of serve:
Control was good, was a little sensitive to incoming spin, but not bad at all. The spin reversal is not great on this, it produces more of a dead ball, but the control allowed good placement, and the grip allowed me to keep it real low. Against topspin a quick block was quite easy to and with good control. Against backspin, attacking was harder, it felt a little too fast, probably due to the stiffer pip and harder sponge.

Generate spin:
I did not feel I could generate a lot of spin with this rubber, the pimples are a little stiff and the sponge quite firm, so I don't think it's the best for this. Still as a fake this is not so bad. There WAS enough grip to keep no-spin balls low though, so it's still a fairly grippy pip.

Blocking against loops:
This is where this rubber really shines... the control was fantastic, better than any I've tried so far. It had a bit of a dead feel on passive blocks, so I had little trouble keeping my blocks on the table. Hitting the ball more aggressively worked very well too. The bat must be closed a little, and a forward movement is required, and this could produce fairly fast balls with decent sink...very effective.

Chopping against loops:
This rubber offered good control for this as well, but not as good as the 955. I feel the 1.0mm sponge certainly contributed to this, a 0.6mm would almost certainly improve this control. Spin reversal was very good, and I could certainly very the spin quite well, but I had more trouble keeping the ball on the table.

With the 1.0mm sponge I feel this rubber is great for blockers, and offers good attacking abilities. It has good control in most aspects of the game, and enough control for some effective chopping, but it excels close to the table. The sponge probably contributes as much to this as the pimples do.