Gosen Raimei 58 review: thin-string pleasure with a short honeymoon
Gosen Raimei 58 ( 58) is a 0.58 mm thin string. I stack it against Yonex Z58 and Victor VBS58 when I talk thin gauges. Bonny BN58 does not make my table.…
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Overview
Gosen Raimei 58 ( 58) is a 0.58 mm thin string. I stack it against Yonex Z58 and Victor VBS58 when I talk thin gauges. Bonny BN58 does not make my table.
Feel when fresh
Slightly softer than VBS58, still among the harder thin strings when new. Z58 is the soft-dwell contrast — smash rhythm hard to find, sound hard to excite. Raimei 58 and VBS58 both answer short force crisply. Elasticity on all three passes. Day two on Raimei 58: fast smash release, little unload, good full smash; passive transitions still reach; backhand depth comes easy. Pleasure is high.
Longevity and tension drop
Raimei 58 is the longest-lived 0.58 mm I have used — relative praise in a short-lived class. Dynamic tension behaves like BG66U: big change in the first 48 hours. By day four, short force is less eager and string movement increases. Prestretch on this gauge is risky. Even after the drop, sound and elasticity remain — fine as a “slacking” string if you accept the softer second half. That curve explains the forum split: soft / hard / sticky / violent depending on which day someone reviewed it.
Verdict
Pull Raimei 58 when you want thin-string bite and are willing to restring often. Enjoy the honeymoon; plan for the DT fade. Not a set-and-forget durability string.
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