Indonesian men's doubles legend, Hendra Setiawan uses the Victor Auraspeed HS Plus badminton racket. It is a compact frame badminton racket with a stiff shaft aimed at maximising speed. However, stiff rackets with a small frame often mean it's unforgiving and difficult to handle. Is that the case here? Continue reading this review and find out!
Victor has gone through quite a racket launching spree in 2024 as they've launched quite a few racket series already this year. There was the Crayon Shin Chan series, the Chinese New Year series, the recently announced Marvel series with Spiderman, Mjolnir and Iron Man rackets, the Thomas Cup special Panda edition of their Auraspeed 100X and then a few more Auraspeeds, namely and the 90K Metallic which I’ve already reviewed here and this, the Auraspeed HS Plus.
When I received the Auraspeed HS Plus, the first thing I noticed was the smaller racket frame or more commonly known as the compact frame. It was immediately noticeable, especially if you’re used to seeing taller Victor frame rackets such as the very popular Thruster F Enhanced.
Turns out, the HS Plus is the shortest Victor racket frame that I’ve tested so far at only 23.5cm and with a width of only 18.3cm. And from my experience, small, compact frames often mean they’re fast and nimble. We’ll get into how the HS Plus plays later on in the blog.
Review of Appearance & Materials Of Victor Auraspeed HS Plus Badminton Racket
In terms of looks, it's quite understated and looks very clean. Those of you who like a dark-coloured racket with not a lot of flashy designs might like this a lot. Victor states the HS Plus adopts the Dynamic Sword frame profile which is also what the Auraspeed 90K Metallic had but the frame profile of the HS Plus is a lot sharper compared to the 90K Metallic which is rounder.
Besides the sharper frame profile, the HS Plus is also missing some of the indentation around the 3 and 9 o'clock which is normally found on Dynamic Sword frames which was again, present on the 90K Metallic.
I actually think the HS Plus’ frame profile is a slight update to the traditional Sword design which was present in Victor’s Brave Sword series such as the Brave Sword 12 with just very small tweaks around the area closer to the T joint. It's a well-proven frame profile and it’s super stable too. The HS Plus’ frame also incorporates a 45% recessed frame profile which is quite unique as manufacturers either go top half recessed or fully recessed. The HS Plus’ recessed area ends just before the 3 and 9 o’clock area, hence at only 45%
In terms of grommets, they’ve been fitted with Victor’s embossed grommets which are now standard for all new releases and the HS Plus has 4 sets of single-pass grommets.
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Another stand-out feature of the HS Plus is the anti-torsion shaft which points towards additional torsional stiffness for the racket but surprisingly being paired with a Free Core handle. I find the Free Core handles provide that little bit more ‘leeway’ and that bit of pliability which helps a lot of us players but the downside of it is that it does feel softer compared to a traditional wooden handle.
And seeing as the HS Plus has got the compact head, stiff shaft and anti-torsion shaft, meaning, the stiff plus stiff plus stiff option, the sudden use of Free Core is slightly surprising. It also goes against all the other recently launched Victor rackets’ designs too.
They wanted the Ryuga Metallic to feel stiffer so Victor went back to the wooden handle and the same for the Auraspeed 90K metallic. So did Victor think they might have gone too far with the stiff, stiff, stiff materials and tried to dial it back slightly with the Free Core handle?
Specifications & Measurements Of Victor Auraspeed HS Plus Badminton Racket
In terms of measurements, the HS Plus has a 7mm shaft with a shaft length of 21.5cm. Nothing out of the ordinary but is the longest shaft for an Auraspeed so far as all the other Auraspeeds I’ve tested had a 21cm shaft.
Frame thickness was measured at 10.5mm thick and as I’ve mentioned before, frame height was 23.5cm and width was 18.3cm. Oh yes, we cannot forget the 45% recessed frame too.
The Free Core Racket handle length was 17.5cm. This test racket was in the 4UG5 spec and was rated at 28 lbs which was 1lb down from the Auraspeed 90K Metallic and 2 lbs down from the original version of Auraspeed 90K. Stringing-wise, I had the racket strung with my usual set-up of Aerobite string at 27 by 29 lbs in tension.
So, how does it feel to play?
Playing Feel & Performance Of Victor Auraspeed HS Plus Badminton Racket
Immediately I felt that this one was demanding. Dry swings felt the racket was head-heavy and I certainly didn't expect it to be head-heavy as it was supposed to be a speed machine. However, because of the head weight, the HS Plus packs a punch, if you can time it right of course!
Because this was coupled with a stiff shaft, there was little room for error and that means if you mistime or catch it slightly off, the shuttle goes nowhere and you get punished straight away.
I say it's head-heavy because when I swap between the current Yonex Astrox 88D Pro (review here), the head weight feels about the same. And because the Auraspeed HS Plus comes without any stock grip on the Free Core handle. I usually have a grap or wrap on top of the stock grip so I had 2 layers of wrap on the HS Plus to replicate the same feel as the rest of my rackets.
Trust me, I started with just 1 wrap directly on the Free Core handle and the racket felt so head heavy and my timing was all over the place. It was slightly better after 2 wraps. I also ran some measurements on the swingweight machine to verify what I felt and here are the numbers. You can see that even with 2 layers of grip wrap, the balance was still very close to the Yonex Astrox 88D Pro! The balance point of the racket with the bare Free Core handle is just incredible!
If you give yourself some time to get used to the racket, I found that shots that had bigger swings such as power smashes and clears where you have that extra bit of time to prepare, the HS Plus will do well as the head weight will be able to carry well onto the shuttle.
However, for the reaction stuff when you’re under pressure that requires a lot of finger finesse and timing, the stiffness from all corners of this racket might be difficult for many of us.
And for multiple sessions, I swapped onto the Auraspeed 90K Metallic and the difference was night and day. The 90K Metallic was so so much easier to time and so much easier to play with compared to the HS Plus. The 90K Metallic was just a lot more fun in this respect.
Granted the HS Plus does feel stiffer but it almost felt like its biggest unique selling point is also a hindrance at this stage. In some ways, it reminded me of Yonex’s old-school Voltric Z Force 2. Super stiff, head heavy, compact head. If you connect with it, it's the best thing ever - solid and crisp. If you don’t, you might have just lost the point there.
Also, this racket was launched with 2 big-name players, HS Prannoy and Hendra Setiawan. However, Prannoy has since swapped onto the DriveX 10 Metallic during the Thomas Cup as well as the Thailand Open, so could it be that he was also struggling with the slightly more demanding nature of the racket and has now gone for an easier-to-play racket?
And we know full well about Hendra’s legendary skills. He’ll have no problem maximising this racket’s potential! For the rest of us, I’d advise for caution and patience. Not everyone will be able to fully maximise the HS Plus’s potential due to its slightly more demanding requirements. But if you’re able to, you’ll be rewarded with lots of nice crisp and solid hitting feeling with lots of speed.
With that said, enjoy your badminton and I’ll see you in the next one!
Watch my full video review below.