I've heard quite a few people carry both.  The thing is I only want to have a 4 ball arsenal, and don't want too much redundancy.  I have a line on a NIB OI and an AI on the way.  Should I jump at the OI, or will the AI suit my medium to medium heavy needs?  I also carry a Big Deal for the heavy stuff, so that's pretty well covered.  In addition, I have a Red Pin I could possibly drill if I choose to do so, for a light to dry ball.  So are the AI and OI significantly different?

Edited on 6/21/2005 11:48 PM

Both are great balls and everyone should have at least one of each. Compared to the orginal inferno the absolute rolls up a little earlier and has more pop on the backend.
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Zack Pelton
Bowl To Win!!!

Not that you need any more data points on this, but the one big difference I've seen between the original and the Absolute is that the original seems to be better at handling poorer lane surfaces.  As great a ball as it is, the Absolute is more sensitive to transition than the original, and thus for me, is more of an arsenal ball than a "go-to" ball.  Because of this, I certainly see value in carrying both Activator and Activator+ in the bag.
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...formerly "The Curse of Dusty," and "Poöter Boöf" before that...

I hadn't had much success with any OI in box condition, and I didn't like them much sanded, so today I decided to give it my best try at a "rough buff" finish.
I took out my tame drilled PBA-Tour Inferno http://www.pipeline.com/~randyo/arsenal/15pba_tour.jpg , hit it with a 400 grit wet sand, then finished it with rubbing compound. It had the same look as an out of box AI.

Went off to practice with it and it Rocks with this surface. I threw it side by side with my AI:
http://www.pipeline.com/~randyo/arsenal/15AI.JPG

I have another OI with a very similar layout to my AI. Once I replace the thumbhole, I will give it a rough buff and do a real comparison.

As expected,  the higher pin layout on the AI made it more angular, but other than that, the change in characteristic of the OI was very noticeable - more like the AI's reaction. With this surface, the PBA-Tour Inferno became more stable, readable, predictable, and behaved more like an AI than an OI. This surface improved the ball 100%. I did the same thing to my Ugly Inferno
http://www.pipeline.com/~randyo/arsenal/uglyinferno.jpg , and it also improved the reacton of that ball as well.
Of the three, the AI played the deepest, about 2 to 3 boards left of the OI. The Ugly ball was straight as always, playing a couple right of the OI.

Edited on 6/23/2005 1:11 AM