Some people mess with their bearings wayyyy too much. Just play them, they’ll do their job. I only mess with a bearing on a new yoyo if I know it shipped completely stripped of any lube, which the person putting together the yoyos would have to do(no factory would ship a steel bearing dry). And as far as cleaning most minor nuances like a spec of dirt or some string fibres in the bearing will work them selves out with some play or a quick 3 second spray of compressed air. Also I should note that I would never run a steel bearing dry, they will lose some of their effectiveness in the first long sleeper you do.
I don’t see it as a judgment call like that. You can run an R/C car just fine with no tinkering, too, just out of the box. You can drive your Honda Civic to the grocery store without an aftermarket muffler… I don’t need Gore-Tex wrapped strings for my acoustic guitar, but I like’em. (likewise, didn’t REALLY need that coil-split on my humbuckers…)
In other words, tinkering is an optional part of many hobbies. I take part in that side of most hobbies I engage in. I’m definitely not one for judging people for doing likewise.
I feel like tinkering can be the best part of many hobbies. It’s just really satisfying to set a goal for yourself and do some work and see the end result turn out the way you wanted.
I’m with Shai on this. I like having the “cream-of-the-crop” when it comes to bearings. Sure you don’t need to have a yoyo/bearing that sleeps ten minutes but it a cool feeling knowing that you can if you want. Similar to what Greg said, you don’t need a car with 500-hp but it’s fun as heck to drive.
Plus they’re gold. It looks amazing. It’s just the icing on the cake.
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Well, I guess that’s one way to look at it. To each their own I guess, I’ll stick my cheapo bearings haha 
Until it suddenly gets responsive or loud and you weep at the thought that your $25 bearing might have just died. I guarantee if i bought 20 10-ball concave bearings from China for $25, at least one of them will be as good if not better than your average boutique bearing, i then have 19 extra bearings to do with what i please.
I am curious though if any of you bearing snobs (no offense intended) have ever tried a completely ceramic bearing? I gotta think they wouldn’t be great due to slightly varying bearing post sizes and the inability of the ceramic to flex, but that is something i could see paying extra for if they turned out to be particularly silent, smooth, or hearty compared to stainless steel variants.
I’m not talking down on steel bearings. I still have, and use, them everyday. It’s just nice to have something different as well. I’m sure everyone has things they prefer that others question as well.
Shai has a completely ceramic, as does GregP (I think…).
I’m not a fan. Too loud.
I own over 400 bearings. While there are individual bearings that may be nicer than other individual bearings, I would not be able to tell you in a blind test what brand of bearing is in a particular throw based on throw feel. (Assuming we are comparing concaves with concaves, flats with flats, etc. There’s definitely a feelable difference between flat and concave and even different concaves.)
I suspect that few throwers would be able to detect a brand difference reliably and repeatedly across many samples of the same bearing brand in a blind test. The variability from individual bearing to individual bearing is just too high to draw conclusions about a brand as a whole.
That said, I enjoy tinkering with bearings and I’ve bought many different ‘premium’ bearings just for fun.
Jason
I had a Duncan stack size A bearing that is two years old it has had dirt, string and other stuff caught in it still plays good after cleaning it plays better than it was new.
I agree with your assessment that generic bearings may be as good as “average boutique bearings” but NSK Micro bearings are way better than average IMO. I have found some generic bearings that outperform KKs, TTs, DSs, etc., but not NSKs.
But I don’t buy them for $25. NSKs are priced really high on some sites but you can get them for less than that. YYF Gold Centertracs are priced about the same and they are also manufactured by NSK Micro. Performance is about the same as far as sleep times. I prefer the concave shape so I get NSKs. They also seem to last longer but I’ve only had I think four of the gold CTs so I can’t be certain.
I have tried every non-generic bearing sold on every major American or Japanese yo-yo store as well as many generic bearings. I recently bought a pack of 10 gold concave 10-ball bearings from China for around $20. I was hoping they’d be good value bearings, but they’re not. I’ve tried two and so far and both completely crapped out within three minutes. Not even joking. After the second one I thought that maybe it’s just dirty, so I cleaned it thoroughly and it was spinning well again and then it crapped out after 1 minute. And by crapping out I don’t mean sub-10-minute sleep times–I mean they became completely tug responsive and sleep times declined to about 30 seconds. There are some good value Chinese bearings but these weren’t it. I don’t think you’d find any that outperform an NSK though, even if you bought a 100-pack. But I could be wrong.
I also bought two full ceramic bearings, each from a different manufacturer, both from China. They cost about $20 each. They are significantly better than every steel bearing and every hybrid steel/ceramic bearing I have tried. They run dry well and theoretically should last a long time. One is a little better than the other. I found a U.S. bearing company that sells full ceramic, ABEC-5 yo-yo bearings for around $80. They’re probably really good, but jeez…I can get five NSKs for that price.
Anyway, I think full ceramic bearings have the potential to be the best bearings, but the ones I got are still outperformed by NSK gold bearings. They may last longer but it hasn’t been long enough to tell. It’s probably just a quality control issue–NSK manufactures their bearings to very tight tolerances and most Chinese companies do not.
Still, I don’t know why we don’t see any fully ceramic bearings on yo-yo sites. Surely YYF or another big company could contract to make and sell them at reasonable prices. And by “reasonable” I just mean within the realm of pricing of other bearings sold on these sites–the most expensive one I’ve seen being the KK “Ceramic” for over $30.
I know I keep harping on NSK Micro but they make the quietest bearings I’ve tried when run dry. This isn’t really important to me and it’s actually kind of weird. My Agonist is so smooth and quiet I have trouble telling how much spin it has left so sometimes I bind early and it cracks me in the knuckles. :-\
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Who pays $80 dollars for a bearing? even if they are really good. Who!?
Somebody must, IDK. Not this bearing snob though. 
That’s very elaborate…I LIKE IT! ;D
I just bought one of those silver plated ones and it doesn’t play any better than the rest of my stock bearings. In fact it’s really loud. I cleaned it and everything. Ran it dry as some people suggested and it was okay at best and the performance got worse when lubed. The stock bearing that came with my C3 accelerator is waaaaaaay smoother and SUPER quiet. I feel almost no vibe from it. I would consider that one a performance bearing over this one. I’d say run this one dry and it will play like any other stock bearing. Lubed it’s trash. Any stock bearing will be as good or better than this one. Keep in mind I got the silver plated one (golds were sold out at the time) aaaaand it’s very real possibility I may have just gotten a dud. From my small tiny little experience I would not buy one for 22.50. Maybe if it was like $7. It was another failed purchase for me.
Are you aware that lubing any bearing will slow it down appreciably?
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Very aware. Lube, either thin or thick, still adds resistance inside the bearing therefore slowing it down. I should have clarified. When comparing this silver plated bearing to a regular stock YYF bearing this bearing lubed is far worse than a stock YYF bearing lubed with the same type and amount of lube. I have also read in a few places that these bearings are not meant to be lubed. Spoda run’em dry and as perfectly clean as possible with some kind of fancy cleaning method. I provided my findings of the bearing lubed in case some one thought that might improve it. It won’t. Again these findings may only be a product of the specific bearing that I have purchased.
Bearings can get confusing. It’s worth sorting out your bearings that need cleaning or maintenance in a baggie or special tin. Captain obvious would be pleased with me.