Looking for the common comparison stuff: strengths, weaknesses, your personal ranking/favorite, why you’d own just one/all four etc.
Maybe you have just one, or all four, or there’s another similarly sized slim, unresponsive throw worth mentioning as part of the group for comparison, I’d appreciate your input. Pictures too!
You should add the panorama, diorama, and maybe the bolt2 into this list. Dio/pano one of my favorites of all time, but just got the sliver and it’s a contender for the slimline I’m grabbing for right now
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The Senban, Asp, and Black Canon I’d say are all in the running for being fairly similar. But if you’re including the Sliver in this, then it’s worth looking at other slimlines like the Panorama/Diorama, Slim Dunk, and El MiJo. They’re all lower walled than you’d expect at a glance, either having subtle steps or a subtle angle down to the response, and feel fairly forgiving in play, although not nearly to the extent of the first three.
If you want the most forgiving and capable option, I’d probably go for the Senban just due to the price, the Black Canon does look nice though. If you want something that feels more comfortable in the hand and has a more “classic” yoyo feel, then check out any of the other options I mentioned in addition to the Sliver. I’m a huge fan of the Slim Dunk.
Just threw the three of these that I have (Senban, Asp and Sliver) this morning after seeing this topic yesterday:
I’d put the Senban in the H category more than the slimline personally. I have it sitting with my Aitch and Daredevil in my head. But, comparing to the others in your topic, the Senban feels lighter than the other two when I played them back to back.
People posting their impressions about the Sliver pretty much cover how it compares to the Asp (without mentioning the latter explicitly) when they said that it doesn’t play like a slimline. The Sliver somehow is easier to land on the string than the Asp. The Asp feels a bit lighter to me, but not wildly. I feel like the Asp has more of an “altitude training” for accuracy kind of feel. The Sliver feels more like a general purpose player.
As someone afflicted with yoyo collector syndrome, I can’t explain why I have all three, and the Aitch and the Daredevil. If I had to rank the three, I think I’d have to say Senban, Sliver, Asp. But I really like them all a lot. Same with the Aitch and Daredevil.
Really interested on some input on this. The black canon is my favourite slimline, due to it being so pocketable. I take it everywhere. I got a sliver on the way and when I get it I’ll give my comparison of the two. Haven’t tried any of the other throws mentioned in this thread.
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For me at least anything sub 40mm is slimline territory. Since 40mm is just a nice classic organic width (Freehand width). I don’t put yoyos in pockets, so just anything that has a slim profile compared to modern full sized stuff of 45ish mm wide is good enough for me. I can definitely see the appeal of the Black Canon for somebody who actually pockets their yoyos since it’s only 28mm wide. I’d imagine dropping a full centimeter over the Senban and almost the Asp would be a deciding factor if that’s something you plan on doing.
Well, since I have all of those I should be able to give you some of my perceptions and subjective opinions. The big drawback is that I picked up yoyoing again about 10 months ago after about a twenty-year hiatus, so I can’t do lots of advanced tricks. I’m also not the most talented at keeping everything exactly straight, so slim throws are more challenging for me. But maybe that won’t matter too much. Here are a couple of pictures to get an idea of how they compare in size and especially width:
Right off the bat, I’ll say that I’m currently in the honeymoon period with the silver Sliver since I just got it a few days ago. So it’s easy to say that I love it and that I’ve been throwing it at every session, several times per day. Despite that, I’ll try to be as unbiased as I can, but we’ll see how well that goes. It’s also worthwhile to note that I really like most of the others as well, enough to get duplicates in different colorways.
So starting from the bottom left with the Panorama, I was originally disappointed in it because for me it didn’t live up to the extreme amount of hype just before the release. That’s not to say that it’s a bad yoyo, it’s just that everyone talked about how it was their absolute favorite and it’s not even in my top thirty. I still throw it every now and then, mostly to see if the passage of time has improved it (or my ability to bend it to my will). I actually do enjoy it more now after spending so much time with the Sliver, and while it’s definitely a well-built throw, it’s still not my favorite. Except for putting blue mini-dome side effects on it, it’s still basically stock with the OD bearing.
Now the Diorama is a different story, and I don’t know if it’s due to the insanely good colorways or the fact that its bearing is absolutely stellar. I’m extremely visually oriented and have been involved in computer graphics for ages, so its appearance surely plays a role here. I haven’t changed anything with it, except for the string, as it plays so smoothly, quietly, and perfectly this way. It’s like I’m treating myself whenever I pick it up, as it’s beautiful and plays as good as it looks. Unfortunately, I don’t think that I’m a good enough or experienced enough player to be able to tell you all the ways that it’s different from the Panorama. I’m sure that I can tell that the differences are there, as throwing them is a very different experience, but I can’t put my finger on the exact reasons why. I got two of these, and I haven’t even thrown the second one yet so I can’t tell if they’re all this good or just this particular one.
The Aitch is an interesting one for me. At first, I was disappointed in it - again due to unrealistic expectations. H-shaped yoyos were definitely my early favorite, so I thought that when One Drop finally made one it would be exceptional. That’s not how I feel about it today, though. I really like it, and have made peace with the fact that it’s not the most comfortable yoyo to hold or catch. Maybe I just have sausage fingers, who knows? The silver one in the picture is my daily go-to for a slimline, and I put red mini dome side effects on it and replaced the bearing with a YoyoRecreation DS that seems to help me with the string centering. Despite being somewhat slim, this barely feels or plays like a slimline throw. I don’t have to constantly be aware of every minute angle and detail, and it never even unconsciously limits me to my better-known tricks. I have a couple more with fewer modifications, and one of them has a superb bearing like the Diorama.
I got the Black Canon in hopes that it would make me more accurate in my throwing, and I used it exclusively for about a week as a test. It really did help, but I rarely throw it anymore. This is the king for feeling like it holds me back and limits what I can do with it. It doesn’t spin for very long, isn’t very stable, etc. But boy, is it portable! I took it with me to Lowes last weekend so that I could throw it while waiting for my paint to be mixed. I’m glad that I have it, but I don’t have a lot of warm feelings for it and don’t use it very often.
I got the Asp in hopes that it wouldn’t be as limiting as the MMBC, and it only takes one throw to know that that’s definitely the case. It’s a lot more stable for me, and those hefty rims really help in that area. It’s also beautiful, with a super-saturated purple ano. For some strange reason, I have a weird hangup about it due to its price. So even though it would be a great choice for carrying around (to Lowes!), I rarely do so because I don’t want to mess it up by dinging it on concrete.
While I haven’t thrown the Senban a ton, I really like it. I still remember one throwing session way back when I thought “now this is what I had hoped the Aitch would be like”. It’s pretty much H-shaped to me, and is a really nice throw. Not that this matters much, but the carrying pouch that it came in is so nice that was a big factor when I was thinking about getting the lighter colorway. Unfortunately, I haven’t spent enough time with it to give a really good overview of it, but it’s a good yoyo.
The Slim Dunk is another good slimline and isn’t nearly as punishing as the MMBC (or possibly the Asp). It’s a little wider than I had hoped for when looking for an EDC, so I don’t use it for that. Like the Senban, I haven’t thrown it a lot as I keep getting distracted by new arrivals.
OK, now on to the Sliver. Wow, this is a fun yoyo. I’ve said that I have to work a bit harder and be more conscientious with thin yoyos, and while that’s still true to some extent with the Sliver, it’s not very dramatic. And even if it does modify my playstyle a bit, the fun factor more than makes up for it. I couldn’t decide on colorways, so I got a couple of them but have only played with the silver one so far. After they disappeared so fast, I found myself wishing that I had gotten the Taro too. But maybe they’ll do another run in the future. It’s probably unique to this bearing, but it reminds me of tinkling glass when it spins as it makes a very pleasing sound. It’s not quite as forgiving as the Aitch, but then again it’s much more narrow and the catch zone is significantly smaller. But even with those differences, it’s still pretty easy to do all my tricks and doesn’t really feel limiting. I figured that it’s slim enough that I wouldn’t be able to do any Eli Hops, but amazingly it took several tries before I finally missed one!
So to recap, my favorites out of all of these are the Sliver and Aitch vying for the #1 spot, followed pretty closely by the Diorama. But they’re all good yoyos, and I’m sure that players more talented than myself would be able to do astounding things with all of them. But the MMBC really limits me by making it a challenge to do some of the tricks that I know, so I’ll put that one on the bottom. If I had to rank the others, I’d probably put the Senban next and the Asp after that. The Panorama fits in there somewhere, but I still don’t feel like I can adequately rank it until I’ve improved more and have spent more time with it.
If you’re still reading, then I hope my musings have helped a bit and maybe given you some ideas on what to get next. Feel free to ask more questions or to request more pictures!
His ranking:
Well, I only own the Sliver.
But damn is it fun.
Have a second one coming in the mail.
Was planning to sell it right away.
Now I am not so sure.
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I would personally place the Senban as a more fun throw to use then the Sliver. I own both of them and they’re great in their own way. The Sliver embodies the ‘slimline’ approach better than the Senban in terms of shape and size for sure. However, the Senban is something I enjoy using more. It’s much more forgiving and fun to use in my opinion. If I could only keep one it would definitely be the Senban. With that said I’m certainly glad I own both, because they’re just well-made and cool yoyos.
This is all incredibly subjective of course, and I think whichever you get will treat you well.
I agree 100% with “blurs the line between H and O slimline, closer related to Dio/Pano/Slim Dunk” the play reminds me of my Diorama, but smaller lol
@Chickenpoodlesoup @Lido @Xymantix Thank you so much for getting a Senban!
