New Luxilon String: Adrenaline

There has been a decent amount of discussion on Talk Tennis about the introduction of a new string from Luxilon called Adrenaline.  Adrenaline is supposed to to be sold at a much lower prince point than other Luxilon strings such as Alu Power and M2 Pro.  While these strings sell for approximately $16 and $20 respectively, Adrenaline is rumored to sell for approximately $9.00 per set.

In my opinion, this is a smart move by Luxilon – a move that will allow them to compete against numerous less expensive polyester strings that have hit the market in recent years.  I’ve been an active member on Talk Tennis for almost two years, and I can attest to the fact that Luxilon often takes a beating from other board members – mainly due to its high price combined with its less-than-ideal tension maintenance.  A common term associated with Luxilon on Talk Tennis is “overpriced”.  I don’t hold this belief.  As I’ve mentioned previously, I have been using Alu Power Rough (full bed) almost exclusively for about 1.5 years, and I absolutely love it.  For my game, I have yet to find a better playing string.  Do I wish it was priced lower?  Sure.  But currently the value is there for me, and thus I remain an Alu Power Rough loyalist.

But back to Adrenaline…

Despite my loyalty to Alu Power Rough, I am anxious to playtest Adrenaline as soon as it becomes available for sale in the U.S. – which I believe will be 1/22/10.  (Tennis Warehouse Europe is already selling it.)  Luxilon recently distributed un-named samples of what has become known as Adrenaline a couple of months ago, but I unfortunately missed out on that.

According to Jeff Davies at Luxilon, Adrenaline is a fairly firm string – somewhere between M2 and Alu Power.  It is the first Luxilon string to use Liquid Crystalline Polymer technology.  This is a similar technology to that used to produce Kevlar strings, but Luxilon is refining it to produce a string that is much more arm-friendly than Kevlar.  This technology was selected to overcome the difficulty of producing a string that manages to offer a nice mix of power and control and do so at an affordable price.

Luxilon’s strings can currently be divided into two categories, or “families”:
1.  Big Banger – based on unique poly-ether-ether technology
2.  M2 – based on variable flex technology

With the introduction of Adrenaline and its Liquid Crystalline Polymer technology, Luxilon is adding a third family of strings. 

As indicated above, I am a huge fan of the Big Banger family – especially Big Banger Alu Power Rough.

The M2 family?  Not so much of a fan.  Through my USRSA membership, I received a free sample of M2 Plus about a year ago and immediately strung it up.  As expected, it was much softer than Alu, and I felt it lacked control – compared to Alu.  It certainly didn’t have that almost magical crispness and insane, fall-out-of-the-sky topspin I get from from Alu.  So…

I am excited to test Adrenaline soon.  I just hope it plays more closely to the Big Banger family than the M2 family.  We’ll see…

Thanks for checking in.

DH