Haven't seen an Alpha Max up close, but the Nexxus is stupid strong. It was hard for me to get deep enough to play on Shark. Pretty clean though the heads for a ball with a 1500 siaair cover prep, but once it sees friction, look out. I have a lot of axis rotation, but very little tilt, so no ball is truly skid/snap in my hands, but the Nexxus is pretty darn close. Even more impressive is that it handles oil really well also. I only have one week on it so far, I can let you know in 3-4 weeks when we go back to some of the longer/heavier patterns.