Several months ago I took out the pads on some of my throws and replaced them with silicone because I was having trouble binding with them with the stock pads.
I haven’t felt the need to do this in the past few months now though as Ive gotten better at binding.
Exactly! All modern yoyos work just fine and are great with what they come with, most problems are down to the user and not the toy!
I’ve only changed pads on a few throws but they’ve been older yoyos. I’ve had to change the ghost pads on my shuriken quite often but I do find they have a “sweet” period then just become way too smooth for consistent binds. I need to look at better pads really.
I’ve re-siliconed a few throws too, mostly second hand YoYos that I felt needed redoing or a different response. I do plan to silicone my Aoda Littles at some point because the pads are naff.
With bearings, I mostly just swap them out if they’re too loud but normally a bit of lube does the trick (probably why a lot of my throws are semi-responsive). Flats or concaved, doesn’t really bother me, I can’t really notice the difference in play, just the noise factor.
I’ve only ever needed to change pads out on MYY and YoYoEmpire stuff. Usually it’s preference or, when I was practicing siliconing, experimentation.
Next up is probably my AL7 B18 whenever I next throw a string on it just because the stock pads on that run weren’t too hot.
General yoyo observation:
When you carry a yoyo in your pocket, and it gathers condensation in the cup that is against your leg.
Not all pads produce the same response behavior. Not everyone likes the hard, slippy behavior of YYF white pads. Not everyone likes the soft, grippy behavior of YYF red pads. That’s why YYF makes different pads; so that people can have choices. Flowing your own silicone is also a valid choice.
When a yoyo comes with a kind of pad you don’t like, it makes sense to swap it out. You can’t pretend that all response pads are the same and equally “great” for all players, and you can’t blame the yoyoer for having a preference.
Man. I love YYF. Got some of their $45 - 50 yoyos today and all of them feel amazing to play with. Fun for days.
Sorry zslane I forgot how much you know best! 
I don’t necessarily know best. I’m just pointing out things that I think most folks already know, but which seem to have been disregarded in your post, that’s all.
I still think that new yoyoers think that gear is far more important than it actually is and I put that down to the opinions of various youtubers.
Oh for sure. Gear holds sway over skill more than it should in lots of fields (music, is another good example). I’m just trying to make it clear that not all response pads behave the same, and the differences are not just in people’s imaginations.
Kinda bummed that it’s been a week and a half and I still haven’t gotten my swap in motion. It’s these kind of experiences that make me hesitant to branch out and try yo-yos from different companies.
I think you have a valid point, way too often people emphasize gear over ability. That said, gear preferences are a real thing (I really like One Drop response pads and Sengoku response pads).
Yep, my point exactly (about response pads in this case).
I think beebon is referring mostly to new yoyoers who ostensibly don’t yet have enough experience to have deeply informed preferences, and can’t really tell which is more responsible for their binding woes: the pads or their binding technique.
Agreed. When I was new, string, bearings, pads, entire yoyos caused so many problems because they weren’t good enough. Strangely, after several years of yoyo, the quality of all those things improved so much that I can honestly say any problem I have now is due to my skill level 
Beginner noob here, and I totally concur with @zslane
I have been obsessing over gear lately over the past few weeks when the reality is I still can’t do all 25 tricks yet on the competition sports ladder.
I already own a VTWO, Ti-Vayder, Dove, Neo, Pyro, G&E4, and a FHZ.
I have just recently sold a ‘07 888, OG OD project, Addict, Spyder, Legacy, Bumblebee.
I have owned Omega brain and a Henry’s viper before too.
I have in my possession V4M Lube, YYJ thin lube, YYF thick lube, a NSK DS bearing, yoyo glove, yoyo tape, etc etc. And have also sold couple of OG KK bearings recently.
The reason I bring this up is because in my limited experience all of these yoyos play so differently and while some are better than others, after my last few weeks of practice I can still land most tricks on all of these yoyos, and the different variation of bearings.
So yeah hear does really matter, quite a lot actually, but not more so than actual practice.
On hind sight, I would have started with 1 yoyo and… actually no I wouldn’t have but you totally should. 
Case in point, the below video was taken 1 hour ago from my practice session for the upcoming yoyo contest.
Incidentally this was the first time I tried any of these tricks on a responsive yoyo (FHZ) with a much narrower catch zone and string gap.
I could have done all of these much easier on my other yoyos, true. But the fact is I could still do it, kind of.
If a uber noob like me can do it, so can all other beginners
Yoyo sighting on pokemon sword. Kind of cool, and it’s a good one, its green @twitch77
Just curious, how did you end up with a bunch of old/mid school throws as a noob? Are you circling back to the hobby?
Seems to be more of a table decoration than anything else. It isn’t even strung up…
Yeah so back in 2007 I got into the hobby, but didn’t really learn much just enjoyed throwing around casually (I guess akin to fidget spinning) but enjoyed buying yoyos and trying different throws. Ultimately I was going to put some time into it and start learning properly and get better, but then again I was 20 years old at the time, so there were too much more interesting things happening in life that was more social and I forgot about yoyos for ages.
Fast forward 12 years, (3 weeks ago) I find my old yoyo case. Decide to sell them since I don’t use them. And as I was taking photos uploading, selling and just casually throwing the bug hit me.
And now I have done a 180 and getting super into it the way I always wanted to but never actually did.
So I wouldn’t say I was a collector. But I just enjoyed shiny yoyos and mindlessly playing with it doing simple things.
Still not a collector, but I did reinvest some of my proceeds from selling the ‘07 yoyos and bought some new up to date stuff and have started my learning journey from the beginning and up.
To be honest I know I have a problem, with all my hobbies, I love the gear too much. Researching about equipment, buying selling, trying new things. Is a big part of the enjoyment for me. And yet, I feel like any decent modern metal yoyos would be more than enough for most people to learn on. It’s like comparing a Pro V1 golf ball that is like $5 a ball to a budget 2 piece ball that is less than a dollar a ball for golf.
Sure the pro v1 will be much better and if you can afford it go for it. But if you can’t, you can still out play most people on any modern golf ball.
Which dollar ball is better? Um negligible difference until you are playing at least say 18 handicap or even lower to be honest to really be able to appreciate the difference I think.
