Vibe obsession hurting yoyo community?

Amen. Some of theses companies (I’m looking at you YYF) need to tighten up their QC. The two least expensive throws I’ve bought in the past 12 months where both MK1’s both smooth as glass both about $65 anything that costs more better be as smooth or I’m not getting my moneys worth.
All of my boutique throws are completely smooth by the way.

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Honestly I would pay an extra 5 or even 10 dollars to assuredly get zero defects.

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Bravo, you and The Beach Boys win the forum today!

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There are yoyos under $100 that are pretty smooth. If I pay for a yoyo that is well over $100, it better not have any vibe, or it is going back.
I just don’t like yoyos with vibe (unless it is in the ‘budget’ category). Since it basically reflects poor QC, or the manufacturer knew about it, but still decided to sell it with the hope that the customer will just take it.

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i have two issues with this statement @Throwto100

  1. your expectations are too high for $5 or $10

  2. your expectations should NOT be too high for $5 or $10

now marinate…

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JustJJ

5m

A little vibe can be horribly distracting to the OCD/ADHD mind, thus dropping playability tremendously. I wish a little vibe didn’t bother me at all, and there are times that it does not distract me in the least. The problem is when it does. I become so ridiculously hyper-focused on it, it’s all I can focus on. It’s almost as if a little fingernail vibe can be magnified by my mind to feel like a tire not quite on the wheel or the wheel not attached properly to the axle, wobbling all about. Then I begin obsessing about it. Good times, good times indeed. NOT. Obviously I’m in good company, since this is a common complaint in the yoyo community. It’s ridiculous, it’s stupid, it’s even irrational at times, but alas, it is still maddening to some. I have definitely learned that some folks are not blessed with this affliction, thus never truly appreciating the curse of the fingernail vibe. It’s as if they can simply accept it for what it is, their brain files it away as some vibe, they note whether or not it affects play, and if so, how and how much, then they go on about with their play/throwing. For those of us who are tortured by vibe, we just want you to know that WE HATE YOU! LoL. Truth be told, I envy you. I’m a reforming perfectionist, I imagine this is just another aspect of my perfectionism, so I am working on not letting it bother me so much. I have a long way to go. Wish me luck.

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Can you name a few examples that come to mind? And if they were “rejected by the community” how did it hurt the community exactly?

If anything it just raises the bar and that’s how “yoyo tech” improves. The yoyos I buy today are far and away superior to ones I bought 20 years ago. I don’t see the downside here.

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The YYF d10 was one model that I know had too high of a reject rate due to vibe, IIRC they couldn’t figure out how to get it to yield a reasonable portion of A grades. I think the avant garde 2 also suffered this fate. I have B grades of both and they have minor thumbnail vibe. Maybe I got lucky with my samples. I know I’ve heard of other designs being abandoned as well.

The one thing everybody seems to overlook is that the vibe obsession definitely raises overhead for the yoyo makers and vendors. The margins are already razor thin, so the boutique brands don’t ever dare do too large of runs for fear that if a run comes back with even the tiniest vibe then they are going to wind up selling them at a loss. It’s my guess that very few of the yoyo companies can comfortably absorb this.

When I look at a nice bi-metal, which has expensive blasting and anodization and requires extremely precise design, machine work and assembly, I find it absolutely amazing that we have so many choices at or below $100.

This will probably be an unpopular opinion here, but I cannot help but wonder how much more fiscally healthy the yoyo business might be, and how many more designs we might see, if barely detectable nail vibe wasn’t a kiss of death. We might still have hspin, spyy and many others if we weren’t so demanding of perfection that we make it impossible for these companies to turn a reasonable profit.

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Wait what? If you are thinking that I meant that $5-10 yoyos should be smooth, you are mistaken.

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It’s not a demand for perfection, it’s raw competition causing manufacturers to bow out. It’s people’s always wanting something new that’s hurting these manufacturers. It’s the BST and Facebook forum taking away even more sales from manufacturers. It’s that the YoyoExperts store, in just the 1A category, has 564 results for yoyos. Yes many are sold out, but 564!! And they don’t even stock a lot of brands you can find elsewhere. The reality is that there are “gazillions” of different yoyos for sale at this very moment with dozens more added each year.

We are the enthusiasts in a niche community, and we are few in number. Going off the last poll I saw, 55% of this community own fewer than 25-49 yoyos. If you account for people that didn’t bother to answer, the real percent is guaranteed to be much, much higher - probably in the 80% range if I had to guess.

So, it’s not vibe hurting the community, it’s sheer over saturation. There’s too many manufacturers now chasing the relatively tiny community size. It’s survival of the fittest. If you can’t make a “medium-to-high-end” vibe-less throw in 2020, there are dozens of other companies that can.

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after reading every post in this thread. I have decided nobody needs the information I shared within my post.

Since there are so many masterminds contributing here.

My view seems unnecessary.

So I just archived it for posterity.

I’m not sure if I want to spend the rest of the day throwing nothing but One Drops?

Or just break down and throw one of my vibey yoyos?

Most of the conversation after my post is quite interesting and thought provoking.

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no, i know what you meant

and, it seems everyone who can work around a basic CAD program wants to do a couple little tweaks to an existing design and make the next Draupnir or Grail… how about less iteration, and more innovation… that would probably help with saturation…

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I’ve heard from many of the biggest manufacturers that they like the BST. It keeps hype up. It means they don’t have to re-run old yoyos and can concentrate on new things but people can still get their hands on old yoyos. It lets people try a premium yoyo by a company without paying full price so that they might buy the next one at full price.

As a former medium sized manufacturer (Is that fair?) but now small sized one, I still like seeing people trade my yoyos. It means more people get to try them. It’s interesting to see the used prices fluctuate and keep some track in my head as it’s important feedback.

Saturation is an issue, but it’s important to note that this is due to how easy it is to make a yoyo now and so many are. It’s not because of the BST. If anything, I see the amount of new yoyos being released hurting the BST communities because people are only interested in the new new.

As for vibe, a new yoyo shouldn’t vibe. If it vibes from a ding or other damage, that’s part of the game. It shouldn’t have any vibe out of the box, or from being unscrewed/used in general.

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you’re first and third paragraphs appear conflicting. moreover, with any jo blo being able to pump out a yoyo these days, it would appear to make the bst thrive more. people, especially younger or newer cats, don’t have to jump blindly into a rando brand to take a risk, cheap or not.

if you’ve been on any bst lately, stating up-and-comers or smaller-than-boutique brands are hurting the bst community is quite obtuse. a couple flashes in the pan won’t replace years, generations of innovation and change.

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I don’t see how they’re conflicting. I may be misunderstanding your point?

It’s not just new/small companies that are saturating the market. Saturation is the sum of all of the parts doing it. I don’t think it’s a big enough issue to worry about, as stated before, it’s survival of the fittest and the market will let the strongest survive. It’s more for company owners to think about than those buying as it’s a buyers market.

I don’t think small companies are bad for the community. I just think they’re contributing to the saturation of new models and when people are mostly interested in the new thing, they’re less likely to buy the old things on the used market. Again, I don’t think this is a big deal, it’s just something that’s happening. Lots of choice is great for the consumer so it’s a net benefit.

I’m not saying saturation itself is bad, perhaps I should have called it a talking point instead of an issue. It’s something to be aware of, sure, but I don’t think it’s something to get too worried about.

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Man I almost typed a text wall but than I just thought…ehh… its just a long winded post about why I stopped buying from yyf.

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The poly edge, somewhat the butter.

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I honestly think retail price should include “no defects”…

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i have this conversation regularly with some of my peers - and i’m solely speaking from my ‘experience’, i never claim to be an expert or omnipotent, lol. but, we’ve definitely been seeing a greater appreciation for the organics and old school styles.

when i speak of brands that were innovative, instead of iterative, from the golden years, i immediately think of spyy. their shapes (ronin), styles (rsl), etc. it seemed like they were consistently pushing the boundaries of what they could do with a variety of shapes. i feel where we’ve come to a point of iteration. granted, i’m not a performance throw type of guy, and maybe that’s why? how much more of a v-shape can you make it? how many more metals can you add to it? inner ring/outerring? i know turning point and yyr are pushing performance boundaries. but, what is being innovated for the rest of the community (where’s our parade?)

daytona sb - great example. but, there’s 25. and, it took a while for those 25 to sell out. so only the handful of us that wanted them got them.

there have been a few pieces that came out recently that seemed gimmicky over innovative, like the christmas tree and petri (no offense to the brands, honestly). what staying power will they have? and that brings me back full circle to the bst, spyy, innovation, etc. if you put a ronin, rsl, etc. on the bst, that will get snatched up in a heartbeat. can you say the same about a petri or a christmas tree in 5, 10, 20 years?

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