I have personally found that the shaft has a lot of influence in the way a layered or normal tip plays. For example, I used to have a Predator shaft that I found played with too much reaction regardless of the layered tips that i found and I tried everything on the market at the time. Thus, I went to a hard buffalo tip which hit great, in fact I bought the box from the cue maker who supplied the tips (someone else here did the same thing). Conversely my Tad shaft played better with layered tips and awful with the same tip.
Thus, there are possibly a few variables to take into account when making the decision. That is my two bobs worth anyway. hope it helps:smile:
One other thing, I once had a bad experience after fitting a hard layered tip which i practiced with for a month or so to break it in. I had a small money game coming up and the night before the game my cue started making a buzzing sound. I couldn't work out what it was and checked the weight bolt and the joint etc. Anyway, I eventually used a wet cloth to take the chalk off of the tip the morning of the game and saw that the glued layers had come apart. As such, I put a new tip on and you can guess the rest. But this is probably a one off tale :-D