The other day I got a chance to shoot with one of these pieces of crap, and all I can say is: UGLY.
I always knew that they looked ugly, but they also sound truly awful. My pool-loving soul recoiled at the very first impact of the cue against the cue ball, and that horrendous hollow "plink" sound.
Carbon fiber shafts and phenolic break tips are the aluminum baseball bats of pool - sure, they perform well, but they look like crap, they sound like crap, and they are a sign of everything wrong with billiards in America.
In England they have respect for tradition, and great snooker players make a lot of $$$ using snooker cues made out of real wood - no gimmicks, no B.S., no eyesores, and no plinking pieces of carbon fiber garbage.
I'd rather shoot with a broomstick than with a carbon fiber shaft.
Carbon fiber shafts should be banned from every money game - agree or disagree?
Are you scared of technology? I kind of understand the mindset honestly I see it all around me and its fine to be that kind of guy.
Listen, in engineering it all comes down to application and materials. We put down the advantages and disadvantages of certain material then come up with a conclusion. Then its down to the public to buy whatever they prefer. So if you prefer wood that's fine but you cannot take out the fact that Carbon Fiber is superior to wood in every aspect.
1. Carbon Fiber does not dent easily. Wood DOES have dents and hits easily.
2. Carbon Fiber always stays straight, no wabble nothing. Wood will wobble and bent, it's just a matter of time.
3. Carbon Fiber will feel slick on your hand all the time (no glove needed). With wood, you need either a glove or a POWDER (yuck).
4. Carbon Fiber doesn't care about humidity or the condition of the weather, it will feel the same just use a towel. Wood will get humid & will make a sound while bridging with your hands which feels awful.
In every aspect, the CF wins clearly.
For the price its obvious the WOOD wins.
Now that this is out of the way lets talk about playability. And I am here truthfully honest with what I have observed in front of my eyes.
I've been playing pool since I was 8 yrs old and now I am 40. I know many many players around me as I go to lots of pool halls and here's what I observed myself and even made a note of. I've seen many players throughout the years with so many levels. There are bangers who cannot play up to the pro levels and all of these guys improve whenever they start using a CF for a long period of time. You might not have this chance because you may shoot with it just one rack and say "Yuck I hate the sound of that crap" and then go back to wood which means you haven't even given it a chance. But believe me, when I tell you that I've seen players who played for 20 yrs and they were plateaued in their skill & stayed the same for a very very long period of time, they don't seem to improve at all for some odd reason, they remained the type of player who can occasionally run a rack but most of the time they are a 3-4 BALLS type of players playing 9ball. And as soon as they switch to CF and in front of my eyes, they started to improve within weeks in fact to become players who will run out the games more occasionally . They even jumped from a 3-4 BALLS in 9ball to a runout kind of guy. They literally started to run out more often and I believe it is due to the CF. Most people will argue this fact that I've seen many many times but it is the truth. Something about the CF that made these medium-skilled players to a better players within weeks. And listen they stayed in the 3-4 BALLS skill-wise players for yeaaaars up to this point where they switched to CF, so to me its 100% the CF. Now if the rack is open and they got a shot i'd say 90% they run out. So believe what you want man, its up to you if you want to give this technology a chance or not.
For snooker maybe they haven't realized it yet, the companies who make cues haven't come into this technology yet but lets see in 10-20 yrs maybe this will change. Probably most of snooker players right now are still into ash and wood because change is hard and I understand, but who knows in 20 yrs if one snooker company come out with decent CF snooker cue, if one young lad starts it. Maybe we see new era in snooker too.