I came across this ball cheap on eBay. It was a little beat up but my Pro Shop Operator resurfaced it and made it look virtually new. I had the pro shop operator apply a 2000 pad to it because it looks it has a very dusty texture. I threw it on a heavier-volume THS with a slight OB on the outside (fresh). First shot I threw up the lane and the ball literally grabbed in the first 25 feet of the lane than hooked into the left gutter. Weird, I did not expect that. It not only read very early but also hooked the whole damn lane instead of simply flattening out. I move my feet into the 30 board zone on the next shot and threw the ball out the window. The ball was heading toward the channel but it grabbed early in the mids and hooked back high flush for a solid 9.

I tried the Storm Sure Lock which a slightly stronger pin and the same surface. The Storm Sure Lock pushed an extra 5 feet down the lane and had a much quicker and shorter hook window than the AET. Overall, they covered about the same exact number of boards on this particular condition but they did it in two completely different ways. 

Here is the funny thing, I tried the Storm La Nina (same surface and drill as the other two) from the same line as the other balls and I basically barely clipped the 3 pin on the right side. The La Nina had the early roll of the AET without any backend reaction. I find it interesting that there is such as stark difference in reaction and hook between two different high load particle balls from the same era.

This tells me a few things about ball technology advancement over the years:

1. Without question, today's oil balls ON AVERAGE are much stronger than oil balls from about 20 years ago. (I know shocker)

2. Today's oil balls read friction much quicker than old school particle balls (this is almost universally true IMO)

3. Hardly any of today's oil balls would be considered "duds" unlike 20 years ago where certain particle balls were extremely conditional even if the reaction was not total ****.

AET seems like one of those old school high load particle balls that does things that few others seemed to do. It rolls VERY early and heavy like you would expect but it is more resistant to rolling out. I still like the cleaner and quicker nature of the Sure Lock on less than flooded conditions.



 

 

I agree with your conclusions totally but it is hard to extrapolate early particle balls to today because more than just about any other ball their history will drastically affect how they behave today (those high load balls wore down quickly especially if not babied).  Only high load ball I have is a Visionary Centaur Particle.  It behaves like a weaker Quantum Bias (which I swear is low load particle as well or at least the white pigment kind of behaves like it)

True, nothing is absolute when it comes to the old particle balls plus they have a different look than today's super resins. What surface do you have on the AMB Centaur Particle? It certainly will not hook on the backend as much as the Quantum Bias but I would be surprised if it does not dig in the oil more unless the ball has lost a ton of reaction or it is burning up.

With that being said, you can bring 90% to 95% of the reaction back on old high load particle balls with proper resurfacing.