Standard and wide body shaped pickleball paddles have had somewhat of a resurgence recently, and Diadem has welcomed this trend with the late 2024 release of the company’s Max line of paddles. The racket sports brand was kind enough to send over the Diadem Edge 18K Power Max, which I’ll break down with a pickleball performance review.
What is the Diadem Edge 18K Power Max?
The Edge 18K Power Max is an iteration of Diadem’s Edge 18K paddle series for pickleball, and the Power Max variant comes in a thermoformed wide body form at 15.7 inches long and 8.23 inches wide overall. Like it’s fellow Edge 18K paddles, it utilizes a sculpted edge guard to reduce drag and 18K raw carbon fiber on the face in a triaxial pattern that creates a great visual effect and functional intention when it comes to generating ball spin. Standard and wide body paddles generally possess a larger sweet spot than their more powerful counterparts that consists of more narrow and elongated paddles.
While the dimensions make this one of Diadem’s ‘Max’ paddles, the thermoformed build puts this in the ‘Power’ category as well. By wrapping the entire paddles around the core in heat-molded carbon fiber, not only is the sweet spot usually expanded, but typically the paddle takes a bump in pop and power in certain scenarios.
How did the Diadem Edge 18K Power Max perform?
As a pickleball player that prefers using elongated paddles to generate more power and spin as I refine my mechanics, I found the Diadem Edge 18K Power Max to be a suitable option, even as a wide body paddle. With it’s large sweet spot, 16mm thickness, and all the mentioned features to make this a power-capable paddle, I found it to be a healthy balance of all the things a paddle can contribute to success, one point at a time.
The overall paddle width allowed me confidence when dinking across the kitchen (non-volley zone), and the large sweet spot aided me when hitting off-center, whether it be dinking, dropping from mid-court, or serving along with other baseline shot attempts. I also feel the Edge 18K balances a somewhat soft feel with rebound, so I found many compact strokes to be both comfortable and successful. I found myself using a shorter swing on serves as I tend to follow through and snap too much with shorter length paddles like this Power Max model, which usually results in a higher, but shallow trajectory that is not good when serving. With the Edge 18K Power Max, I found the right amount of spin as well as power to capture some depth of serve. In my experience, this is probably the most powerful wide body paddle I have swung so far.
I struggled the most with the Diadem Edge 18K Power Max when experimenting with its high spin potential. Because it generates a high amount, I found myself pushing the limits of back spin with backhand slices and top spin on one-handed flicks from the backhand and top spin down the line from the forehand. The majority of these shots ended up straight into the net due to too much top spin dragging the ball through a lower trajectory. Not all top spin shots were failures though. When I had opportunities to get both hands on the shorter 5” handle for two handed backhands I was able to develop some stable, precise passing shots as well as speed ups to set up finishing shots.
Who is the Diadem Edge 18K Power Max best suited for?
I am confident in my belief that the Diadem Edge 18K Power Max is best for beginner to intermediate players with aspirations to continue playing. It will work well as an all-court paddle that plays well in the power and high-pace game as well as the soft game with its balance between power and control.
Though it’s pricey, it works for beginners as a wide body paddle with a large sweet spot that is closer to the hand, so errors/mishits may be neutralized to a certain extent. If you’ve never picked up a paddle before, it would not be a wise first purchase, but if you have demoed or owned a cheaper beginner paddle and would like to stick with the sport for a while, I think the Diadem Edge 18K Power Max is a worthy upgrade to advance your game with.
Disclosure
While Diadem Sports did send the Edge 18K Power Max to facilitate this review, the company had no involvement in this review, didn’t receive an advance look at it, and has not attempted to influence it.
