I am a customer, you are a salesman… Tell me why your bearing choice is supreme. I am looking for your solid opinions on such bearings as the CBC center trac, konkave, Yoyojam speed bearing, trifecta, 10 ball, or just the generic standard C bearing.
Go!
When you buy a twisted trifecta bearing, you are not a customer, you are a friend. with a little maintenance, these bearings will get your yoyos spinning as smooth as your favorite flat bearings, but with the added spin and stability afforded by other grooved bearings. Many grooved bearings can induce slight vibration or are noisy. not the twisted trifecta: The ten balls in the twisted trifecta gives smooth, quiet spins after every throw. Even some PREMIUM flat bearings can start to play nearly tug responsive on grippier yoyos, or cause the yoyo to spin for less long compared to similar grooved bearings. The concave nature of the twisted trifecta will prevent both of these problems as well. With the twisted trifecta, there is no sacrifice in spin quality, smoothness, or stability when you use a twisted trifecta. Other bearings that can do all of this can cost almost twice as much as a twisted trifecta bearing.
Hope this helped! all criticisms of other types of bearings are born from experience. The center trac is also really great (makes yoyos spin 2/3x as long sometimes), but can be noisy and can induce some vibe.
My choice is if you feel like taking the time to experiment: match up the bearing to the yoyo and seew what is your ideal match.
I will say that in my limited experience, I’ve had poor results with the generic YYJ large C bearings and even worse with the YYF SPEC bearing. Other than that, I’ve had pretty much excellent results with everything else. I would say buy one of each, and don’t forget a Crucial Grooved as well in your choices, as well as a General Yo AIGR. See what you like in a particular yoyo, and whatever finds a new home, buy a replacement for it so you can keep experimenting with a complete set of test bearings.
I know this isn’t the answer you’re looking for.
Let me give some examples:
I found the Trifecta was an ideal match for the Burnside for me, but I got this idea from a friend. The funny part was I set up 2 Trifecta bearings for 2 Burnsides for his SER competition, one of those yoyos being my Burnside. I now own the other half of that competition set as well, so I own his competition set. I did not care for shaped bearings in any other One Drop I have. I do have a Ceramic Terrapin X in my Code 2 with Disc side effects, while my regular Code 2 with spikes has a stock OD 10 ball in it.
My DM2’s, I like those best with an 8 ball steel Terrapin X Wing cut in them, and all 4 are set up the same.
My Speeder 2 and Meteor play better to me with a KK. My Chaser played best with the stock flat bearing in it.
My Crucial Half & Half is way more playable with a Crucial Grooved bearing than a flat.
I haven’t found a yoyo that didn’t include a CenterTrac to have an improved performance over the stock bearing, but that’s because I haven’t found the right combination for yet. However, I do have many yoyos that use CenterTracs(Positron, many CLYW’s, many YYFs) and swapping to a flat or other bearings, I didn’t care for it, so I went back to the CenterTrac that they came with. In this case, I strongly do agree with the choice made by the company!
My MVP that I bought used was flawless and included a ceramic KK in it. I did try a CenterTrac in it, and I felt it was good, but maybe because I started with a KK, I prefer the KK being in there. I will say it played great with the CenterTrac in it.
Classics: I mostly pop YYJ Speed bearings in there. Aweosme configuration with flowable silicone.
The new YYJ HEX: I got the new Terrapin X Wing Cut Steel 10-Ball and oh man was that a massive upgrade over the already awesome stock YYJ Speed bearing. It stopped this “thunk” kind of thing going on.
I do have a friend who flat out wants a Crucial Grooved bearing in all his yoyos, and that’s fine too. It’s also a great bearing. For me, if I’m not super pleased with performance, I will mess around and see what I can do to improve things. In my case, having no “default”, it’s freeing to have such choice, but it is time consuming figuring this stuff out.
Preferences. It’s all about preferences. You’ve got to figure this out for yourself.
I know it’s not good salesmanship. Buy some bearings and experiment. It’s only money, right?
Just buy a 10 ball. You won’t regret it
Thanks for all the replies. I think I will purchase a 10 ball and trifecta and test them out with all my throws. Funny thing about the center trac is its literally my quietest bearing! I use it in my Super G and its smooth and quiet, everything else I use is either a spec or yyj speed bearing. I need to try out other things.
Although they aren’t optimal in every yoyo, the Trifecta bearing is definetly my favorite. Everything Phil said was true.
The gacek one comes with a free centertrak for $10
So you get a free yoyo with a discount on your bearing essentially
I’d go for that