Siamo spiacenti per la pubblicazione in lingua inglese, ma il mio italiano è cattivo.
In this Forum, if you type "F2 board" for example in the search tool, you get about 1400 threads. It's just amazing... and this shows how open the Swoard brand is!

One can post here anything about snowboarding or about any board, as long as these boards are made in a fair way, with a real research and not in a Chinese way of copying products. Making outline copies of the Swoard (or even copying the model name, illegally!!) is just pathetic. These few brands just try to follow the trend we have started and want to make money: they don't really care about the nice alpine community. On the other side, it's very good that some brands come,
finally, with wider boards (and outlines that are different from the Swoard of course, designed is a fair way): it has been our goal at Extremecarving.com since day one, and the subject of our
Manifesto in 2002.
If the Rolex watches had a Forum, I would love to see how they would manage as thread about Rolex replicas!

Most people agree on the fact that:
1) it's not polite and a not respectful towards the inventors and developers who are working hard.
2) the replicas (I should write "copy attempts") suffer no comparison with the originals.
The subject of the post was about the performances of the "clones". This word is not well chosen because we are talking only about the outline. Fortunately it's not possible to copy the construction, the ATC Matrix, the know-how, the know-how-to-extremecarve-like-Jacques, etc.
Concerning the Duret board for example, some riders in this Forum have already compared it with the original extremecarving board (the Swoard). The Blitz, Jacques, I and other riders felt the same things: the board is not as precise, it does chatter, it is not as stable and dampened as the Swoard and the laid turns are not as easy. In conclusion the outline doesn't make everything, it's only a small part!
Note that it's possible to lay down a turn with any board: I could use a door to make one isolated turn in front of a photograph, hihi!

But for laying the turns down
fully and linking them
with ease, the Swoards are the best weapons because we have developed the extremecarving technique with them (and reciprocally the boards have been developed in parallel to the technique). Swoard is the only brand which is showing videos (for many years) about extremecarving (touching the snow with the armpits and linking the turns).

Nowadays no boards are bad! Any experienced shaper can design (or copy an outline, what shows his abilites) and make a board that is OK on the snow. But to create an excellent board you need:
1) The best materials and the best factory (with employers who work well and who you can control about quality and reproducibility questions).
2) A good and experienced shaper/engineer.
3) A shaper who is not an average rider!
4) A brand which is specialized in the discipline for which the products are made! If it has been making narrow and race boards only for 15 years, it can't claim all of a sudden it is a specialist of wide boards and fully laid turns.
5) A brand which is not only designing the board in an office, but is making many prototypes which are tested on the snow (all types) for many days, for several years.
6) The prototypes are tested and improved by the best specialists of the discipline.

7) A factory that is not 10'000 km away from the shaper or the (only?) rider who is testing it.
Swoard fulfils points 1 to 7.

Duret fulfils maybe one point (guess which one). Among the other brands, only Virus is reaching 3 points (though their boards are more expensive).
A big advantage that Swoard has is that the designer (Jacques Rilliet), besides his 20 years experience, is an excellent rider. Both aspects, excellent engineer/designer and excellent rider, are rarely found together in the same person. This is the key of success: no problems of communication between the tester and the designer. Jacques knows exactly what he has below his feet, and can understand the links between what he feels on the snow (with his high sensitivity) and the engineer questions.
Another big force is that the factory for Swoard is only 30 km away!! Jacques can go there very often and check how people are working. He can control everything. We can get a prototype in one week, make tests, and again get a prototype with changing a parameter. Etc. That's the best way of developing/improving a model!
Again, no boards are bad. To pay only 20-30% more for boards which are excellent and made as described above, with points 1-7, it's nothing. Some people pay 200-300% more for cars...
Seriously, I really think that the Swoard is not expensive for what it is. Indeed, I remember that in 1991 I bought a Wild Duck alpine snowboard for... 1050 CHF (= 656 Euros)
full taxes !! It was a "cheap" board, from mass production (5000 boards per year!). With the inflation in 16 years, it would be now about 1230 CHF (= 769 Euros) ! It's more than the price of the Swoard (1120 CHF = 700 Euros in Switzerland) which is though a much better board.
Thank you for reading this post and understanding what is beyond the things. Thank you too for respecting the brands that come with original products and really help the sport to improve.
Someone told me one day: "Swoard is like Apple: bringing original products, nice ideas and showing the way".
For me Jacques Rilliet is like Steve Jobs, but much humbler!
Patrice Fivat