Are you serious, Nathan? Do you understand how few yoyos 2000 is in the grand scheme of all yoyos? That’s my point entirely.
My life has revolved around “the finer things”, be it jewelry, IT, pro audio, and more. It has skewed my perspective.
Let’s talk audio gear, since that’s an area I am well versed in. I’ve had lots of gear pass through my hands and test bench. Regardless of price, it’s treated the same for evaluation as any other gear. I have no problem saying “this gear sounds like @$$” or “this is a POS” without hesitation or concern about price, brand or the designer standing over my shoulders. Regardless o the price, once I label something as something I dislike, forget it, I could care less it they are paying ME to own it, it’s worthless to me.
On a similar topic, I’ve used this before:
I had one of my former crew run the stage with about 20 different handheld vocal-oriented(or compatible) wired mics to find a best fit for him. With prices ranging from $35 to $750, he ended up sounded his best on an $85 microphone. That is why I have a large microphone: match the transducer to the source.
With yoyos, I take a similar approach. Yes, I have a TI-5. It’s nice and I do like it a lot. I also have an Anglam, which price aside, is my favorite. I think we can agree these re “high end” yoyos and certainly meet the OP’s pricing criteria. But if I didn’t like them, they’d have no value other than what I could get off BST for them. If I don’t like it, I want it gone. If I disliked the Anglam, then it would be a $289 POS. However, I like the Anglam a lot, so that’s not the case.
For me, taking a more black and white perspective, “high end” will typically refer to stuff most often at the $100 or more price category. This allows me to include delrin off-strings, full metal, mult-metal and plastic/metal yoyos. One you hit this price break, a lot of user/buyer mentality and expectations change once you break the $100 barrier.
I try to keep beginners under $20 to start. I try to keep intermediate people under $60, but after that, I step aside. A parent will easily cough up $20 to get their kid started. A child showing progress and serious interest will have parents feeling OK but more resistant spending up to $60 or a bit more. Once you hit the triple digits, the parents and buyers make a marked change. Even the price difference between $99 and $100 is significant as far as the expectations.
I can be fine with an upgraded Classic or even a Lyn Fury or a ONE or a WHIP. It doesn’t take much to please me.
At the same time, I’ve played a few yoyos, unfortunately this sounds anti-YYF(but it isn’t), buy they’ve been YYF. Don’t like the *-Nova, don’t like the Severe, don’t like the Rockstar, don’t like the Genesis, don’t like the Skyline, don’t like the Super-G, don’t really like the G-Funk(my boy has one, he likes it, that’s all that matters). To me, these yoyos are just not good fits for me, despite being top sellers, popular models and are without a doubt excellent yoyos in all regards. Granted, these aren’t all in the “high end” category either, but they were so not compatible with me that I don’t even want them for collecting purposes so I can have them around for people to try. But the dv888, which I’ve gone on about as not being a favorite, is a common reference yoyo that it’s a must-have, despite it not being an ideal fit for me, it serves a purpose in that it helps me play better. Proof I am not anti-YYF is that I own over 30 YYF’s, my favorites being the Equilateral, MVP and Mutant-DNA. The Roll Model is another yoyo that isn’t an ideal match for me, but I felt a connection there and it said that it should stick around for a very long time, and so it will and from time to time, I show it some quality time and attention, and I am rewarded by playing a tiny bit better afterwards.
Also, some yoyos are priced far below my “high end” mark of $100, yet perform at or beyond that of price-validated high end models. So, what really is high end? If I’m getting Chief type performance out of a yoyo costing half of that price point(the RecRev Freq.Wav), should that yoyo not be allowed to be considered high end just because of a low retail price?
Fortunately for me, price is merely a function of commerce. High end is a matter of the mindset. It’s more important that a yoyo is able to serve a purpose in my collection for me. Despite the fact I share my collection at meets, if I don’t like it, I don’t want it around. I am just as horrible on a high end yoyo as I am on a cheap yoyo.
Right off, I’ll say I consider RecRev to be a high end brand. How they manage to sell that kind of awesome at the prices they do confuses me greatly. I’ve actually bought 7 new ones within the past month, including some duplicates. Sure, I’m biased and I like this brand, but other people are thinking similarly.
Of course, most of us can’t argue that OD and CLYW are premium brands, and yes I will say high end. Heck, based on my satisfaction with GSquared, I would lump them into the same category as these two other well known high-end brands without hesitation.
C3 is also a high end brand to me. I currently don’t have anything by them that is over $100(I think, what is the Trident running?), but I’ll say that even their budget models of the Capless and DiBase play at above the $100 price point. Even with niche models such as the Alpha Crass and Token, these are still decent yoyos. Does it devalue a company to offer such inexpensive models?
Let’s hit YYF again. I do consider them to also be a premium brand, but I only want to say I don’t consider them a high end brand due to the fact that they offer yoyos from very low in cost(ONE, WHIP) to quite a few in the $100+ category. Of course, not to get black and white, but I feel their stuff at over $100 is high end, and they also offer metals below the $100 price mark that despite me not liking them, are still high end.
YYJ is in a similar category as YYF for the same reason: high product offerings over a gigantic price spectrum They do have many high end yoyos, many I have, many I want, and some being under $100. I do consider stuff like the Theory(an upcoming purchase) to be high end. YYJ is another premium brand. As much as I am enjoying my Classics with upgrades(or not), I will never consider these high-end or premium yoyos, but I will still consider them AWESOME. The H3X just blew me away, but the Phenom is still my top YYJ yoyo as it’s more compatible for me, but if you try to take my H3X away, I’ll chew you arm off!
Duncan does offer high end yoyos too and is a brand many people overlook because they’ve been associated with cheap plastics for ages. This is no longer true. Yomega is breaking their cheap plastic image too, but I’m just having a hard time bringing myself to buy a high end Yomega.
There’s so many other companies that are mainly orienting themselves to the “high end” market, which again is the $100 and up price tag. It just doesn’t make sense for smaller companies(Except apparently RecRev) to focus on making yoyos selling for under this. Werrd is trying to get into the mid-range market with the supper affordable HOUR, despite being known more for $100+ yoyos. Now that my issues with Werrd have been resolved, I can finally get some Werrd yoyos I’ve been wanting, which include the HOUR.
So, I guess to me, high end is more about performance rather than price. If I like it, that’s really all that matters.
1 Like
Well, the Chief being considered “high end” or not, would in my opinion, have more to do with how sophisticated the design is, and the cost of it, rather than the “rarity” of it. So, do you guys think the design is sophisticated to the extent that it is superior to other yo-yos enough to be called “high end?” Some would say yes, some say no, it’s all opinion. I’m curious what the majority opinion is though. It looks like the bar is set at $100 on price, so in that case, the Chief is considered by most to be high end in that regard. I had not considered it so, but I’m in the minority. I think it’s a fantastic throw, but I would not say it fits definition of high end.
Like i said other than some YYF and YYJ i can’t think of any other yoyo with as many runs and yoyos per run as the Chief. Would be curious what yoyo you think is more common than the Chief that’s not a plastic or made by YYJ, YYF.
I would tend to agree with everybody else that a “high-end” throw would be anything around $100 or more.
But, the most expensive yoyo in my collection is a YYJ Theory, which I paid $52.70 for, so I would probably condsider anything $80 or more to be “high-end”.
[quote=“NathanC,post:24,topic:55013”]
The list would be huge! To start with, Duncan Echos Raptors. Yomega Dashes and Mavericks. Although it’s new to the market, it won’t be long before the Barracuda is in that category if it’s not there already. Almost anything by C3, including the Capless. A few different One Drop yoyos. All MagicYoyos… the list goes on…
But I don’t know why you’re qualifying “that’s not a plastic” other than to set up a straw man to knock down. I’m afraid I’m not going to make it that easy… nobody said anything about, “In the category of expensive yoyos, what is considered the highest-end.” You’re already subsetting if you do that, and in that subset, the Chief isn’t the top dog by any stretch. You would be correct in your interpretations if that’s what we’re doing already.
But we’re not subsetting. We’re asking what is a High-End yoyo? In general.
Consequently, you HAVE to include all the plastics. That’s what we’re comparing to… the grand sum of yoyos, not just the “performance” yoyos in our little (very little) corner of the hobby.
Yeah, I was thinking about it all in my head, and for me, it sort of works out in different tiers, where expense is concerned. The tiers range from low to high, but that’s how I think of it. So, as you can see, I considered $100 to be in the second tier, not all that expensive.
First $0 to $50 (anywhere from a butterfly to a DMII) relatively Inexpensive
Second $51 to $100 (a YYJ Theory to a Yelets/MMN) mid-range
Third $101 to $180 (an El Ranchero to a Berserker) kinda pricey, costs some dough…gotta work this into the weekly budget.
Fourth, everything else (high end range) Whoa! Yikes Not sure if I can get that one this week, or next week. 
Not that I’m thinking much difference between $100 and $101, but you get the gist…over $100 gets my attention, but still not too crazy. $100 was in that second tier for me.
for me yes/no since it at an higher price(doesnt count b-grades) and has alot of runs, with colorways like hulk smash,28 stories and ect. but that just an idea since i dont have “high end yoyos” but i have plastics that can compete against high end yoyos ie alpha crash or budget metals that plays way past their price ie magic n9 so i think high end just has to do with price,material and hype
I don’t think that 100 and up is a very good bar for high end. My supernova feels high end. The geneses, role model, and burnside are also rather high end throws under 100.
Seems to be a mixing of terms, working here. If you want to change the actual Dictionary meaning of ‘High End’, that is fine by me… As long as everybody is on the same page.
But, high end seems to have coalesced into ‘high priced’. As similar as they are different.
Totalartist, that is a loaded question, for sure. (
If you ask a kid with 10 yoyos in his bag, ‘Which yoyo is your high end yoyo’, he is most likely going to show you his most expensive yoyo.
If you ask a guy with 3000 yoyos in illuminated and revolving Display cases the same question, he is probably going to point to his Shinobu Nostalgia, a True High End yoyo.
And if you ask Studio the same question, he is going to write you a Hard covered book and tell you that there would probably be more Catholics in the World if he would have been Running the Sound stage for Moses when he was layin down the 10 Commandments.
You could probably get more defined answers, if you had phrased you question to suggest whether people feel if high end and high priced have a commonality or should not be recognized as interchangeable terms?
4 Likes
I never pay attention to this “high end” thing. When I see a yoyo over $120 that I want to get, I check the BST. I don’t go crazy with money, as I am young and don’t have a job, but it doesn’t stop me. And if I like a yoyo a lot, and it is $50, it’s high end in my opinion. I like it. I like the YYF 2.0. It’s a fifty dollar budget yoyo. But I honesty like how it feels and is my favorite undersized yoyo I’ve tried (haven’t tried them all, but I have tried/owned at least 6 undersized and only kept this one). I tried a CLYW Sasquatch and didn’t really like it. To me, it is not worth keeping. I just gave it back to the guy and went back to the RecRev booth and bought a Silly Goose, a $60 dollar yoyo ($40 at BAC but I assume it will cost $60 online). I love the Silly Goose. My own high quality yoyo.
That’s all I’m saying. Price has nothing to do with anything, except how hard it will be for me to get my hands on.
@ Yoyodoc…
Definitely a loaded question. I set the definition using Websters (as you linked), and high end being something by definition 1. upscale; 2. superior quality or sophistication usually high priced. Price is included in one version of that definition of high end, so that is why we are discussing matters of price here.
Because the definition alone leaves a lot of room for interpretation, my question was geared toward finding out what the “majority opinion” was regarding how people rank things “high end” in yo-yo terms. I read the forums more than I post and while reading, observed that many people considered $100 throws high end. I had not set the bar there in my own mind and became curious if I was interpreting what I was reading correctly. It seems to be true, based on this thread, that a majority set the low bar for “high end” at about $100. I was surprised to have confirmed that.
A few would consider price less important such as DrAwesome who seems to value the way things play over the price tag in determining a “high end” throw. Some seemed to let price be the best indicator, while others tend to look for things that are superior in workmanship or things you don’t see done that often, or harder to come by.
It’s a combination of factors for all of us, but how we weight those elements in determining high end is very, very subjective. But, while it is subjective, there seems to be a majority opinion here where the element of price is concerned. The majority is telling us that within that definition that states “usually high priced”…they think that price is at least $100 for a yo-yo.
I, personally, would set it above $200…about double. So, if I wrote the definition it would be:
- upscale, 2. superior quality or sophistication…usually a yo-yo over $200.
TiWalker is usually the first thing that comes to mind when I think High end
In my mind, “high-end” doesn’t necessarily correlate to price. If I play a yoyo, and I think it is “bad” (not just not to my tastes, but seriously lacking in some major department, like if the spin time is less than 3 minutes, then it isn’t high-end in my mind.
When I’m judging two yoyos that I’ve decided are high-end, it would be impossible to say “yoyo A is better than yoyo B”. It would be more along the lines of “yoyo A fits my play style more than yoyo B does”.
I have to admit that when I think of anything “high end,” if it’s a car, or anything else…the price of it comes to mind. If I don’t know the price of it, I’m thinking, “I wonder how much that thing costs.” I would say that I probably consider price first, and infer from that, that it likely cost a lot to produce it (resulting in the price), and due to the amount of cost and effort put into it, that it must perform superior than the average. I guess that is the best way I can put it in terms of the way I think when I see the term “high end.” I think some of the more “high end” yo-yos are considered that, because of what I stated above. But, I definitely factor price into a definition of “high end.” It is even included in the definition, so it just makes sense to me that it get some consideration. But, at the end of the day…my question was answered. As it relates to price, when people say a yo-yo is high end, usually they just mean it costs $100 plus.
Well, the most expensive yoyo I have bought so far is the $95 Saint Eel, so that’s high end to me.
To me a high end yoyo needs:
Nice Anodization
Precision Design
No vibe…
Plays good
$120-$180 high end
$180-$250 luxury
$250+ extravagant
$100 is high end. any yoyo at that price range should make a person do sufficient research on it before purchasing.
Really? Why is everyone saying expensive yoyos are High-End?
Cheaper ones can still be High end too!
The Raptor, Dv888, Di Base, they were all very high end feeling yoyos for under 60 bucks.
They all have great anodizations and great play, so how would they be LOW end?