That makes a lot of sense and I agree with you on feedback. My experience with feedback is that feedback increases as "stiffness" decreases.
Old school cues had a lot of feedback, like old Joss' and Balabuska's had very medium stiff hits and even a little of vibration but they had tons of feel and lots of feedback and even sounded different with different amounts of force, ivory ferrules helping a lot here. There was also a bit of detachment in those cues in that you could sense the shaft separate from the butt. Cues were forward weighted, slightly more flexible through the shaft and I feel were very feedback centric. Some cues like Meuccis and many of the wood to wood jointed cues at that time were very whippy as well.
The more modern cues seem to have a very different "hit". They seem to be very stiff to extremely stiff. They are also extremely solid, and feel more 1 piece. I also feel they provide dramatically less feedback than older style traditional cues.
I am working with Martin Bick on getting a Lambros, and I met him yesterday up in Orange County to play in a tournament, but also to try a Kent Davis cue. Martin actually brought Kent himself and it was very cool to meet him. I tried one of his cues and talked to him about cue making, and I can tell you that he makes a outstandingly gorgeous cue. It was also very much in the new type of very stiff, solid, low vibration and feedback mode of many modern cues. As that type of cue, I am not sure you could find one better than Kent's.
Martin said that his cues have among the best hits in all of pool, but that comes from a particular bias towards that type of super stiff one piece feeling solid cue being fundamentally the "best" hit.
I may also just not be good enough at this point of my playing career coming back after 20 years of not playing to sense any feel in a really stiff cue because of my stroke.
I just received a Dominiak cue that I used for the tournament. It is really an AWESOME cue. It is ridiculously solid, low deflection and also very very stiff. Cue is also slightly back weighted. I realized that the Dominiak could not really be put together any better. It is amazingly consistent, has not "best" orientation, and would be perfect for many players.
So when I hear "best hitting" in these forums I always wonder what that means to the individual person. I have realized I prefer a forward balanced, medium hit type of cue with a little liveliness to the shaft and a lot of feedback but stopping short of being actually whippy. I created a thread to find that hit which has been tremendously useful.
In terms of these poles of hit preference where would you think the Frey fits in?
I have realized I am just not a fan at all of this type of hit.
So
You sir seem to got the crux of what my long winded response was supposed to be lol. Yes, FEEDBACK is what I wanted to say. Also, NOT STIFF. THEO are EXACTLY what I was trying to say that I love, and hate! I've played with SO MANY " nice cues " and while for sure they were " nice " and very expensive I just never got that " feel " from them. IMHO, I do truly believe Bob Frey to be one of, IF NOT THEO MOST, underated builders of our time. As I have said, I do not believe you can go wrong buying one of his cues. If for some reason it's not to your liking you can EASILY get your money back. Whichever way you go my friend, I wish you the best of luck and please update us whatever yards do!!!!