Nice post JB. Before I cast my vote I will say this....I think players today are a LOT more fortunate than players 15 or even 10 years ago when it comes to cue selection. I played a LOT of pool back in my college days in the late 80s and early 90s, was a cue nut back then and even built 30 or 40 cues or so around the late 90s early 2000s. Being a cue nut, I tried just about every cue around back then and Southwest seemed to be my cue of choice.
Around eleven or twelve years ago I got away from the game pretty much altogether, and only started playing again last year. I got to say, I am blown away by how many cue makers are turning out damn nice cues nowadays. It's crazy! I've had probably 20 or 30 different cues now since I came back and sooooo many of them played good. We as players should consider ourselves very fortunate to have so many good makers around, not to mention so many good production cue makers.
My hats off to all you cue makers, builders, assemblers, factories, etc. I know many in the business do it out of love, not for the money, so thanks y'all!
This Buds for you my friends!
But I do have to vote, and I will say my vote is for Sugartree cues by Eric Crisp. I recently received one of his on trade and after playing with it for a few hours I honestly gotta say its the best playing cue I have ever held, and believe me I've held and played with a lot. Like many cues the hit is great, balance is awesome, etc etc...but this Sugartree just has something else. I wish I could describe it, if I come up with the words ill come back and edit this post.
Play well my friends.
Jeff