There is no perfect set up though. The smaller the ball, the less contact. So it depends on the radius of the balls AND the number of balls. I doubt any of us know their radii, and there are probably many other factors not mentioned. It’s a lot more complicated than any of us have stated. 
I agree: “all the bearings nowadays will offer enough spin time to get you through your tricks, so it doesn’t make a huge difference what you use”
Look, I went through geometry. A sphere will only touch a plane at one point no matter what the size of the sphere. A bearing race will only touch the ball at one point no matter what size the ball is. Now, the balls can also touch the cage so I would also assume that a ten ball has more friction by touching the cage than an eight ball bearing. Under the exact same conditions, a ten ball will spin less than an eight ball. As I said though, this is negligible in the grand scheme of things.
Then if you paid attention in geometry, you would know that this is only the case with a perfect sphere touching a perfectly flat plane. Since the interior of a bearing is not a flat plane, It does not touch at only one point. Therefore, you can’t use this argument to prove that a 10 ball will spin less than an 8 ball.
But, this is all going off on a tangent. The terrapin bearings are great, at least in my opinion.
So to speak. If you think of the two circles of the ball and the outer or inner race then you can see that they are tangent circles. Tangent circles only share one point, sooooo, a bearing ball will intersect the race at one point. So a ten ball will have more points of contact in that respect.
Whew, I just love math…
Kyle Weems has done a controlled test on several different bearings. The ten ball didn’t spin as long as the others. All of them cleaned too. Seems ten ball bearings were made for precision not for spin time. The tighter the specs on a bearing the less it will spin. The looser the longer. That’s just how it is.
Wow, I never even realized my own play on words until you pointed it out. I must be half asleep today. I can appreciate your love of math. I love it as well. It’s nice to have some intelligent debate on here
You are absolutely correct, if we assume that all the circles involved are perfect circles. But, due to imperfections in production and deformity due to heat and wear, they won’t be perfect. I’m assuming that the races and balls are all slightly flawed, so you’re not really getting perfect tangent points from any of them. But, you’re right really. Perfect tangent or no, you’re going to get negligible friction difference between any of these. So, a perfectly made 10 ball would have more friction than a perfectly made 8 ball, but not enough to amount to anything remotely noticeable. In the real world, with real world flaws, I still think they are pretty much even. I stand corrected on my earlier statement about surface area/etc. I wasn’t thinking straight geometry. I’d say in general the 10 ball would have more load bearing capability and allow less deformity of the braces, therefore reducing friction by a miniscule amount and giving it a longer life span. But an 8 ball ceramic would also be great because it allows less heat friction and less chance of deformity of the ball bearings themselves, therefore reducing friction across the board, again by a miniscule amount. And i think that’s the most I’ve ever used the word “deformity” in one sitting.
Right, if they were perfect, the 8 ball would touch with 8 atoms and the 10 ball would touch with 10 atoms. Hardly a difference. 
Assuming the balls are not made perfectly (like yoyos are not), think about this example: would you expect Lucky’s 6-foot-tall yoyo or a Mighty Flea to have more contact area with a surface?
What I’m saying is that we don’t know the radii of the balls, and so we don’t know the friction trade-off between size and ball count. It may be that the 10 ball has more friction that the 8 ball, but it’s not necessarily due to the ball count alone.
I have something to add on this that’s maybe not so much opinion based and I thought my findings on this one were very interesting. Hopefully you guys will think so too.
I’ve recently had the privilege of gaining ownership of two 2007 888s within the past couple weeks, but each of them were plagued with an annoying vibe - one of those vibes you could see and feel on every throw, thumbnail test confirmed. I tried every possible thing I could on these things, tuning axles for a half hour at a time searching for a sweet spot to no avail.
I noticed the bearing on my ‘Mud’ 07 was getting a bit gunked up, so to hold me over until I could get ahold of some mineral spirits for cleaning, I decided to swap out the standard flat bearing for the Terrapin chrome bearing I had laying around. Much to my absolute surprise, my vibey Mud was now dead smooth even without tuning the axle. Thinking it could have just been a fortunate fluke, I proceeded to play and enjoy my now-smooth 888.
Fast forward a little bit to yesterday. I just got an aqua '07 888 and was terribly disappointed to find an even bigger vibe than the Mud had. I could feel it at the end of the string on each throw and every grind I tried was super annoying. So I went through the motions again. Swapped out the axle, tuned it like crazy and put every single smooth bearing I owned in that thing. Nothing worked - I thought for sure there was nothing that could make it play smooth and I was starting to get really mad at the person I bought it from.
Then I put in the Terrapin. Once again, dead smooth. And I don’t mean just a little bit smooth either. I’m talking dead. smooth. On the string and on grinds (grinds are the real test for me), no vibe whatsoever.
I know that my story is bound to conjure up plenty to skepticism (and perhaps even a few outraged naysayers) because had I not experienced it myself, I wouldn’t believe it for a second. All I can say is for this reason alone, I’m completely astounded and am now officially a Terrapin fan.
Took the words right out of my mouth.
I will have to try them out
Wait a minute. I could be wrong here, but what about the amount of stress on each point of contact? If there are more balls, there is less stress on each point of contact. Doesn’t that come in to play at all?
Ah, the whole things whacked…
if you like em buy them. I may even buy the magic juju beads
if ceramic fixes mud…by all means use them
more points of contact probably does not out weight the friction from the cage…
If you want bearing wars please visit a inline skate forum or maybe a longboard forum. You might get a laugh out of it. They have taken this to a whole new level. Imagine the arguments put forward buy engineers, Doctors of mathematics and physicists. Even with these people it ends up with name calling…lol
this topic is a mess
i don’t even know what the question is.
just that a lot of things stated are wrong
I agree. There is nothing good coming from this.