So, at this point in 2016, how do you guys feel about MagicYoyo?
For a guy just getting back in to throwing seriously after about 15 years, I can’t get enough. I’ve done some research and I know that plenty of people were sour on them pre-2013 or so, but I haven’t had any issues and the 3 that I have purchased have been beautiful and feel pretty high quality.
Keep in mind, I’m barely breaking into what would be considered “advanced” tricks at the moment, but my T5 and N9 particularly handle everything in stride, look good doing it, and their combined cost is like $25.
Do $50 to $100 yo-yos really make that big of a difference? Or do yo-yos work similarly to guitars? Top quality peaks around mid range ($1000 for guitars, I’m guessing $50ish for yo-yos) and anything above is just frills, specifics and customs with high mark-ups)
Yoyos like the T5 and N9 and all of their older models prior to 2015 or 2016 was why a lot of people hated magic yoyos. A few years ago people hated chinese-made yoyos in general to be honest but nowadays more and more yoyos and companies are manufacturing their yoyos in China for the lower cost due to the market getting more and more competitive. I think this really started in 2013-2014, which may be why people started being a little more accepting of magic yoyo, but at this point a lot of people still didn’t like them as far I know. I think the main reason for this was because of another reason people didn’t like magic yoyo, unoriginal designs. A lot of their designs looked like copies of well-known yoyos from popular companies. THere’s other reasons too but I think those are the main ones. I think most people’s perspective on magic yoyo started changing this year after they released the Skyva and shortly after, the Stealth because they were more original designs.
As for prices, around $50 is actually the budget metal range, around $100 is the high end monometal range with anything higher than that nowadays is likely going into bi-metal territory. You could say those are kind of like the 3 tiers of metal design and as you climb up the yoyos definitely get better (assuming you get the right ones) but the improvement isn’t so substantial that using a $150 yoyo instead of a $30 yoyo will make you a better player. However, they do still offer slight, but very noticeable improvement in performance. Generally speaking, They’re more stable, more forgiving, and also more options as you go higher so you can have more choices in yoyos that fit your style.
So, from my perspective, lets look at it this way:
Fender designed the Stratocaster and the Telecaster and they are timeless, loved designs. Every guitar company in existence has copied these designs with minor, insignificant variations, and those are also perfectly wonderful guitars.
Are the T5 and N9 exact rip offs of something? Like down to the weight and geometry?
I’ve got a DV888 and I’ve played with a Shutter in addition to the YYF plastic throws I have plus a bunch of what was considered top of the line back in 1996 yo-yos and, in my opinion, the Magicyoyo stuff is just as good and sometimes better for less money.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally cool with paying $55 for a top quality throw with an awesome design (eyeing a shutter for Christmas, just have to get my skills up to warrant asking for one), but is it worth it? Is it 3x better?
It wasn’t exact, it was like a lower-quality version of the original. So it looks the same but doesn’t play as well. But that’s not the main issue. The main issue is that magic yoyo sometimes copies high quality yoyos from other companies. It’s kind of like bootlegs. If you support a company that makes bootlegs, you’re making it harder on the original company that made the original design to make other great yoyos and produce new designs.
As for the dv888 and shutter, the dv888 is worse because it’s undersized and outdated, it’s not a good yoyo at all to be honest. I’d say the Shutter is definitely better than the T5 and most, if not all, magic yoyos though.
The quality and price of a yo-yo is not what makes it fun for someone. If your yo-yo is holding you back from being able to do something you will figure that out and get something that fits your style better, which may or may not be a higher end throw.
I understand where you are coming from, but why? Why is it lower quality? Lower quality than what? Is it, say, half as good for $10 as a $55 throw? To me, how many differences can you have in a yo-yo? It’d be one thing if its copying a throw that is 100% made in America that costs 2-3x as much. If the T5 is a $10 copy of a $35 made in USA yo-yo, then yeah, I’ll go for the USA all the way. But if its a $10 copy of a $65 also made in China yo- yo, then I don’t care.
At this point I don’t feel like my progress has been impeded by the quality of my throws. I like to have a lot of different things because variety feels good to me. It sparks my creativity and my want to play (I’m also abusing a free trial of Amazon Prime at the moment).
Also, maybe I’ve been lucky. I’ve read that the QC is all over the place on the YYM throws. Is that the case?
I’m honestly not trying to be condescending. Just looking for knowledge. Like I said, I fully intend to purchase some $50 throws at some point.
Can you compare a Fender to an Ibanez or to a PRS? Yes. They are all guitars. They all do the same thing. But there are a multitude of small details that make a Fender a Fender. These things can be emulated but they still won’t have the heritage or place in history that Fender does. It doesn’t meat it’s the best but, Jimmy Hendrix or Buddy Holly didn’t play a PRS. Same thing with yoyos.
Like I said the designs aren’t exact and the little details can make a big difference. Also, Quality control of older magic yoyos is pretty bad. If you tried a higher end yoyo like a one drop you’ll understand the difference. Less vibe, better bearing, better pads, no variation between yoyos, just has an overall more premium and high quality feel to it. It’s hard to understand when you’re newer or are unfamiliar to more expensive throws but there is definitely a difference. When I was in my early stages of yoyoing I thought any yoyo over $30 was completely unnecessary and that I’d never need it too, and I think a lot of people starting off are like this. But now I’ve had dozens of premium $50+, $100+ yoyos and currently have a Hideyoshi, almost $200(and this isn’t the most expensive yoyo I’ve owned either) it’s my favorite throw and I don’t regret getting it at all.
On another note I’m not saying magic yoyo is bad, I personally have nothing against them I was just telling you why some others didn’t like the company. But I do think that the quality of older MYYs are lower and although they are a good value they aren’t as good as some $30+ yoyos. A few years back MYY was a better value and could compete with the $50+ yoyos of the time but in recent years budget metals have gotten much better and at this point I don’t think the old MYYs can compete with a lot of the $25+ yoyos today.
If you’re talking about trick capabilities then they can handle whatever trick you can do on a 150+ yoyos, just like a Squier or Fender given to an experienced guitarist both can handle any song that can be played on either. The biggest difference between modern yoyos are more about feel, quality control, and probably the prestige to it to some extent. The ‘trick capabilities’ is more or less down to the player themselves.
Not that this is a guitar discussion, but the point I was getting at is that there isn’t much difference between a $1000 guitar and a $3000 quality wise. There just isn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I have a bunch of both and you get a certain level of quality out of the box and the use of more expensive materials.
For example, I understand why a titanium yo-yo would cost so much more than an aluminum one. Similarly a guitar built with exotic woods and titanium saddles, etc… would cost much more (generally) than some something made of maple and alder with standard steel saddles etc… The exotic woods don’t make it a better guitar, just made of more expensive materials.
Basically what I’m getting out of the discussion is that the more expensive metals come with a better quality control, prestige and don’t need a set up out of the box vs. needing to clean (or possibly replace) a bearing in a magicyoyo and having to lock down the axel and things like that.
Yoyoing isn’t about if a yoyo can do something or not. Nowadays one can do practically any trick with a $15 yoyo, but that doesn’t mean the more expensive ones aren’t worth it, otherwise no one will buy them.
Maybe if you could meet other yoyoers or go to contest sometime, doesn’t have to compete just looking around, you may try the more expensive yoyos and see if you like it. Even I can hit pretty much any of my tricks on a lower end Magicyoyo, yet I still think buying a Yoyorecreation is worth it, and it’s not about prestige or collectibility either.
Not talking about Magicyoyos, maybe it’s just me, but some lower end designs just seem to be ‘slapped together’ in a short time, like, as long as it looks decent and play decent then sell it, kinda thing. While the higher end like CLYW or YYR seems to put a lot of thinking into it, every part of the design makes sense and is intended to make it perform in certain way. This is why I tend to choose yoyos from certain companies who seem to know what they are doing.
Just as anything else, there are expensive yoyos that worth it, and there are the ones that aren’t.
I have al different types of throws. I also recently got a magic stealth. If it didn’t say magic or stealth on it, u could not tel the difference. It’s 7075 bimetal and spins for days. It slams home and feels heavy yet only weighing ~64gs. For 50$ u will be impressed, heck for 100 or 125 I would be. I reach for the magic stealth before some more expensive mono-metals all day(i.e. orca) which are way pricier. Just my opinion though.
I’ve tried a few and was never a big fan (haven’t tried too many of their newer models though). The yo-yos I tried always felt a little boring, kind of like they just settled with the first design instead of prototyping and tweaking to perfect it.
I like the new Skyva a lot. It’s not designed by magicyoyo, but maybe they learned something from the collaboration/design process that they’ll implement in future designs.
I guess the general inability to try before I buy is also part of it. I like that I can grab a bunch of different MagicYoyos for pretty cheap to try out different shapes, sizes and weights to see what I like the best.
I would like to grab a stealth at some point, too. They’re never in stock anywhere that I actually trust buying from. Hopefully they’ll hit Amazon pretty soon.
Many thanks for the thoughtful and helpful discussion.
If I remember correctly you just recently started unresponsive play so I don’t think getting a higher end yoyo would be very beneficial to you right now but as you hget better you’ll start to find your own style, your preferences. One of the benefits of looking into higher end throws is that there’s a ton of different options that you can look into to suit your preferences, to fit your style. Manufacturers of high end yoyos, OD, CLYW, YYR, even some newer startup companies like 2Sick, Recess, Sengoku, all of these companies put hours and hours of thought into each design. Every little detail is considered to optimize the design. With the high end market getting more and more competitive every year, the manufacturers also have to step up every year, old companies like OD and CLYW have to continue putting our new and great designs to maintain their following and when a new startup like Recess starts getting a lot of talk, you know their designs must be top of the line in order to compete.
Well, I’ve purchased 6 of them at this point. Used some work points to grab an amazon $50 gift card and tossed a few bucks at them. I’m really really liking the T5 and the N9. The size feels really good. The N11 is different, but very cool. Very round. I got an K8 today and it feels a little big, but the weight is really awesome. There’s an N12 and a N8 on their way.
I’m almost through the intermediate tricks and I fumble up the advanced ones and make knots, but once I can throw down a little better, I’ll look in to some higher end stuff. I’d love to go to a convention or something, but there just aren’t any locally.
Wow when I was at that level I was still just using a YYF ONE and Velocity
I think once you’re consistent with most or all of the advanced tricks and are getting into the expert/master tricks is a good time to start looking into higher end yoyos
