Here’s My Take......
The joint is an elemental part of why a cue can feel different.
The difference between wood & steel as cue materials is huge.
The best feeling cue I ever tried was a wood to wood joint.
The majority of my cues are flat ivory for durability, yes, durability.
The ferrules and cue joints on my cues are free of any & all cracks.
Wood is more susceptible to environmental conditions & so it can change.
Metal is impervious to that & so is ivory but it is a lot more soft than metal.
Ergo, flat ivory was the next best cue joint I ever used, aside from flat wood.
Now having said this, I think the shaft, ferrule and tip are more influential in
determining how the cue feels more than the cue’s joint but that is also a factor,
albeit less so than than shaft. The weight of the shaft is indicative of the wood’s
density and heavier shaft play more stiff. The ferrule material and length are
other considerations and then of course, the tip type and hardness. Last but not
least are the shaft size and taper length. So as you can see, there’s lots of factors
that in combination affects the way a cue shaft transmits vibration from the stroke.
IMO, there is a weight proportionality ratio between the cue shaft and cue butt and
when the cue fails to fall within this range, the cue usually does not play to my liking.
By that I mean the feel stroking the cue ball just is different than what I prefer in cues.
In fact, all too often the cue demonstrated an unsatisfactory hit and not surprisingly,
a large majority of others testing the very same cue also expressed a similar opinion.
The bottom line is there is not a singular factor or a couple of factors but lots of factors
that contribute to why a cue feels the way it does besides the cue joint regardless of the
joint being wood, ivory, phenolic or metal. Anyway, that’s my 3 cents contribution on this.