Having swung the Miken Ultras since I started playing senior ball at 52 (now 58), I recently had the opportunity to swing the Senior One vs my Ultra Maxload and Kevins White Centenarian. I hit with some senior hitters in San Francisco in about 65 degree weather and was so surprised that yesterday I repeated this in Wisconsin in 89 degree temps. While I have always loved the Miken feel of the bat hitting the ball and had great performance out of the 30oz red maxloads I swung, my perception of no bat outperforming the ultra has been shaken., My perception, for me, was not reality.
First off both times I hit in conditions that varied from cool to warm, so compression of the mostly 44 325 balls, with some rocks in the mix, was consistent under the two temp extremes. I hit with 3 game ready 30oz red miken maxloads, with a 100 hit 2013 28oz Demarini Senior the One as well as a 30 0z 2012 Demarini Senior The One, and a 28 oz 100 hit White Centenarian.
To summarize, I found with distances of 350 plus in SF and 380 plus in Wi, that both the Demarinis 28 and 30oz bats were fairly consistently performing 20 feet longer than my Ultras and the sweet spot appeared to be very similar. The white Centenarian, was similar in performance to the Demarini.
While I can't say how it will perform in another senior hitters hands, and stating that I have decent power for a 55 major plus hitter, I found that the Demarini Senior One, both 2012 and 2013 models in the 28 and 30oz versions were out hitting my Ultra and had a comparable sweet spot on mi****s. Besides this, both bats were more durable. I broke none of the Demarini Senior Ones in this testing, yet broke 3 of my Ultra gamers. The Ultras have such a unique feel of the ball burying into the bat, that I always assumed it had the best sweetspot and distance, but for my swing, it appears both the One and Cent are bats that outperformed the venerable U2 for me anyway. I will be playing a tournament this weekend and will be starting it with the 30oz Demarini Senior One. A white cent that I tested for Kevin in january, was also a great bat and I left it at Woodlawn Hitting club in St. Pete, and they tell me it now has 1500 swings...unreal. so in summary, give the Demarini One a shot, great bat performance and for me alot better durability than the U2.