I couldn’t find a discussion about this yet, which is surprising. I don’t know much about bearings, but it seems ceramic bearings are better than steel, 10-ball is better than 8-ball, and obviously concave is better than flat. Other than these qualifiers, I can’t figure out which model is the best; google isn’t helping.
Could someone with good-bearing experience help me out so I don’t go buy the first thing I see?
I would recommend one of the of the Buddha bearing co. Bearings they are cheap and play great
There is no best bearing, seriously. Just like there is no best throw, or best string. It’s all personal preference.
That being said, I also like Buddha bearings.
I like 10 ball bearings the best. If you are talking about brand, then I wouldn’t know which to recommend but I’m assuming they can’t differ that much
Ceramic konkaves are the best bearing on the market, in my opinion. They have the most consistent performance, least amount of maintenance required, smoothest play, longest lasting, and longest spin times out of any other bearing I’ve ever tried.
Are they worth $30? Eh. Depends on how much you want to spend. Personally I’d rather spend $90 on three bearings to have a top-notch competitive set of three yoyos than buy another yoyo. But for most casual players out there, it’s probably not worth it.
I think bearing quality is fairly objective. Either a bearing spins long, lasts long, is smooth, and does these things in a consistent manner, or it doesn’t. There is definitely a superior bearing and definitely an inferior bearing.
I have an arctic circle 2 on the way, so another $30 is nothing for me. Thanks for the input!
Oh by the way, are the ceramic Konkaves 10 ball or 8 ball? I guess it doesn’t matter if they’re the best. Does that really make that much of a difference?
They are 8 ball. I agree that they are the best bearing for use in a yo-yo.
8 ball, like vegabomb said.
As for 10 vs 8 ball… I wouldn’t say that either is inherently better. I feel like 10 ball bearings, such as the OD 10 ball or YYJ Seed bearing spin a little smoother than other flat 8 ball alternative, but they spin just as smooth as profiled 8 ball bearings.
It could be that it’s the higher build quality of 10 ball bearings that make them smoother, and not the two extra balls. It’s difficult to say. However, you don’t need 10 balls for quality and 8 balls don’t mean bad quality.
Also, if you do decide to go with a ceramic konkave, protect your investment by keeping it properly lubed. A lubed bearing is a reliable and quite bearing. The performance increase of running a bearing dry is negligible and not worth the rapidly increased time-to-failure. Any thin yoyo lube will work. They’re 90% the same anyways.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever learned how to properly lube a bearing, but there are tons of guides in the mods and maintenance section of the forums.
If it spins decent and doesn’t make the throw responsive, play it.
Looking at the different responses clearly shows that everything else is preference.
You won’t get a consistent answer if you ever use “best ____”, that is just the nature of yoyoing
I have used 5 different bearings now and one thing I have found is that it is more important to learn how to properly clean and lube the bearing then the composition or brand of bearing. Even the best bearing will play bad if it is dirty or neglected. Just my humble opinion as a noob.
No bearing will correct a bad throw. However, a flat bearing does allow your string to contact the insides and slows down the spin.
Pretty sure there’s competitive players that don’t use ceramic konkaves. Does that make them casual players?
Pretty sure that’s not what Jake meant. 
The spirit of what he wrote was, “Just because they’re worth that to me, doesn’t mean they’ll be worth that to you and chances are you can save your money.”
I have spent a small fortune buying and experimenting with various bearings, and have some very strong opinions about most of the brands and types I have tried.
But I will say that the new Gold Center Track bearing that YYF just released this past year is absolutely my bearing of choice.
The Ceramic KK is not far behind, but neither of these bearings require all that much maintenance, and without any doubt give a noticeable change to the way my YoYo’s feel to me.