Why?
Because cleaning and lubing a gold bearing can where the gold away. And eventually you won’t have a gold plated bearing anymore.
I do believe that is false. If simply cleaning/lubing it removed the gold, consider what the dry balls grinding on each other would do.
Really, it’s all preference. And the hype says play bearings dry. So the lemmings follow.
Hmm I guess I had not thought about that.
you can safely clean and lube gold bearings, like normal steel or chrome/steel bearing but i would suggest not to even use them as they are worse than good steel ones and more expensive.
only don`t clean ceramic bearing with mineral spirits and solvents, only with air and paperstrips. and only lube them a very little bit to nothing.
Ive heard that the gold is fake
Also untrue…
[quote=Mr Frank Difeyo]Bearings need to be Cleaned and Lubed over time and extended use. This applies to ceramic bearings as well… Paint thinner or grease remover such as Gunk … Engine Degreaser can be used.
[/quote]
Paint thinner generally refers to mineral spirits.
Lighter fluid (as in Zippo) also works well.
Mr. Difeyo knows his stuff. 
I’ve seen beforehand a friend of mine who owns a supposedly gold plated bearing that whatever the gold material is got dissolved when cleaning, to be fair that wasn’t a CT so it might be different.
I’d believe either the plating was supposed to dissolve with the balls acting like dry lube, or it’s a total gimmick just to make it look expensive.
Whatever that is, to answer the question, I generally don’t lube my bearings (either gold center track or anything else) when I want it to be unresponsive, because:
-the small increased drag out of the lube, sometimes the spin time is noticeably shorter
-having to spend some time to break it in
-after break in, sometimes the bearing becomes responsive again after stopped playing for a while
All of those increased hassle is just not worth it to pay for the slightly less loud and slightly longer lasting bearing. If a bearing is totally clean, it won’t be loud trust me, unless your yoyo is the “amplifier” kinda one which lubed bearing can’t even shut, and on top of it, I have never “worn out” any single bearing over the years, even the cheapest one. More likely than not you’ll get something inside the bearing that can’t be cleaned or the yoyo breaks, before your bearing ever worn out enough that it affects play.
But in the end, that’s just me…