CRBN TruFoam vs JOOLA Pro IV

Verdict first: buy the CRBN TruFoam Barrage if your weakness is that you want a fast ball off the face and 14mm paddles have always punished your misses — foam in a thin core is the specific fix for that, and it takes a control point off the Perseus. Buy the JOOLA Perseus Pro IV 16mm if you want the known quantity: the grippier face on our scorecard, a hybrid outline that is easier to play at the net, a published warranty and a paddle whose behaviour over three seasons is documented. If both prices are more than you want to spend, the 11Six24 Vapor Power 2 ties the Barrage on three of four axes for less than the Barrage costs.

One thing to check before you compare the buy buttons: the Perseus Pro IV is now the superseded generation to the Pro V, so it is frequently the cheapest paddle on this page rather than the dearest. We quote no figures anywhere on this site — the live prices on the three buy buttons, with the date they were pulled, are the only numbers we will stand behind.

The reason this comparison gets searched is that both paddles are sold on the word foam and the word is doing different work in each case. Getting that straight is most of the decision.

Side by side

Manufacturer-published figures. Where a maker publishes nothing, the row says so rather than repeating a retailer's number as fact.

Two kinds of foam, two different paddles

JOOLA's Pro IV generation uses foam structurally. The core is still a polypropylene honeycomb; the foam sits in the edge wall around it and in the throat below it, stiffening the frame so less energy is lost to flex. The middle of the face behaves like a honeycomb paddle because it is one.

CRBN puts the foam into the core itself. Foam is continuous where a honeycomb is a grid — stiff at a cell wall, soft at a hollow cell — so the response across the face evens out. The practical consequence is the one that matters here: it lets CRBN build a 14mm paddle that still forgives. Normally a thin core means a hot ball and a small margin, which is why our best 14mm paddles page is written as the deliberate, narrower choice. The Barrage is the exception, and the foam is why.

Our best foam core paddles roundup ranks the whole field with the three constructions laid out in a table, and the Gen 3 and Gen 4 foam guide covers the generation labels. The short version: "Gen 4" on a box tells you almost nothing about what is inside the paddle.

The core thickness is the real fork in the road

Everything above is construction. What you will actually feel first is 2mm. The Barrage is 14mm and the Perseus here is 16mm, and that gap changes more about a paddle than most spec-sheet rows: the thinner core rebounds faster, so the ball leaves sooner and harder, and it damps less, so a mishit transmits more. The thicker core compresses more, holds the ball marginally longer and spreads the energy further from the contact point. Our 14mm vs 16mm guide has the physics in full.

If you are not sure which side of that you want, buy the 16mm — it is the thickness we recommend for most upgrading players, and our best 16mm paddles page covers the field. JOOLA also sells the Perseus Pro IV in 14mm, and our Perseus 14mm vs 16mm comparison concludes the 16 is the default unless you have a specific reason to want the 14.

Spin: raw carbon against a treated surface

We score the Perseus a point higher on spin, and the reason is the face rather than the core. JOOLA's Charged surface is a treated carbon face — texture applied to the sheet, which tends to hold its grip longer and fade gradually. CRBN's is raw carbon, which starts grippy and polishes smooth faster under heavy outdoor topspin. Both are real spin faces; they age differently, and our grit durability guide covers the part almost nobody mentions, which is that face texture is a consumable. If spin is the single axis you care about, our highest-spin paddles page ranks on it alone and our how spin works guide explains the mechanism.

Shape: elongated against hybrid

The Barrage is elongated; the Perseus Pro IV is a hybrid, which is JOOLA's outline between an elongated and a standard frame. Paddle dimensions are capped by the rules, so length is bought with width — and because resistance to acceleration rises with the square of how far mass sits from your wrist, a slightly shorter head makes a meaningful difference to how quickly you can turn the paddle over in a fast exchange. That is the quiet advantage of the JOOLA here, and our paddles for hand speed page explains why head length dominates that decision. Our shape guide covers the full trade; the elongated Barrage wins reach and leverage on a drive in return.

What we cannot compare, and will not pretend to

No published machine measurements for the TruFoam Barrage could be verified, so the swing weight row says not published. For the Perseus Pro IV 16mm, Pickleball Studio's directly published figures are 8.04 oz static, 116 swing weight, 6.04 twist weight and 2,170 RPM. Those are their numbers for one of the two paddles on this page, and printing an estimate for the other to make the table symmetrical would be inventing data. Neither brand publishes a swing weight itself. Our how paddles are tested guide explains what the independent testers actually measure and why so few figures exist.

The rest of each line

CRBN. The X Poweris CRBN's honeycomb power frame and the paddle most of our CRBN comparisons use — see JOOLA vs CRBN, CRBN vs Six Zero, CRBN vs Gearbox and CRBN vs Vatic Pro. The TruFoam Barrage review is the full write-up on the paddle above.

JOOLA. The Perseus Pro V is the generation above the Pro IV (Pro IV vs Pro V finds the difference is feel rather than specification), the Scorpeus Pro IV is the standard-shape sibling, and the Hyperion Pro IV is the round-head one. If you want JOOLA against the other value and mid-tier brands, see JOOLA vs Vatic Pro and JOOLA vs Six Zero.

Verdict

These paddles are not really competitors; they are two different answers to the same construction trend. The Perseus Pro IV is the 16mm, hybrid-shape, treated-face, fully documented flagship — the default recommendation and the top of our power roundup. The TruFoam Barrage is the 14mm elongated paddle for someone who specifically wants a hot ball and has been burned by thin cores before. Pick the core thickness first, and the rest follows: 16mm and you are buying the JOOLA, 14mm and the foam core is what makes the CRBN the better version of that choice. If the Barrage's price stings, the Vapor Power 2 gets you most of the way for less than it costs — though check all three buy buttons first, because the superseded Perseus Pro IV is often the cheapest of them.