I own a set of Ping I500's and what I found was that spin changed quite a bit with ball changes. For example, My typical 7 iron spins around 5800-6000, with the i500's and my typical ball (TP5X) my spin rates dropped to around 4800-5000. Huge distance jump because of ball speed increase from the heads and spin decrease, but it was way too much of a jump. Seeing 7 iron going 200 carry was not something I was looking forward to on the course. So I changed to B330, and immediately saw spin jump to 6000+ with the same ball speed and my typical 7 iron was much more playable at 185 carry. The forgiveness is still there, and I have a much more repeatable flight/distance. I saw the same spin numbers with Titleist Pro V1x, Bridgestone b330s etc. Balls that were not playable due to spin drop were like Titleist AVX, Tp5, or TP5x.
So I guess what I'm saying here is, don't discount the irons just because of what you read on the forums. Ball choice is key in making these irons do what you want. All my data is from my GCquad, so its as accurate as can be. It took me a week of testing different balls before I had the winning combination.
