On general purpose reels that is. For me it's a deal breaker, personally. Every time i owned one, the last being an Aldebaran MGL, the gears went noisy way faster than usual.

Nope

Curados stay smooth and have ci4+ or plastic side plates.

As long as the reel doesn't fail, I don't care.

18 minutes ago, Brycecover said:

Curados stay smooth and have ci4+ or plastic side plates.

Curados are one of the noisiest reels on the market. Stays smooth for maybe a season, if lucky.

The curado is actually one of the prime reasons why i can't stand plastic handle site plates. OG Tatulas were exactly the same.

You had that happen to you? What exactly happened with the reel?

17 minutes ago, Brycecover said:

You had that happen to you? What exactly happened with the reel?

I do not own the reel, but i know a lot of people who do, and literally all of them have the gears buzzing like crazy. For fun, check random videos on youtube with people using the Curado (one that isn't new, obviously), you will hear the gears from a mile.

But i also do know that many do not care about this, and if you don't, you might not even notice unless someone mentions.

I guess time will tell. Mine has been good so far and I haven’t really heard that at all with other people. It isn’t as smooth as my zillion or steez or metanium, but right now it feels good.

1 hour ago, WetBlanket said:

Curados are one of the noisiest reels on the market. Stays smooth for maybe a season, if lucky.

The curado is actually one of the prime reasons why i can't stand plastic handle site plates. OG Tatulas were exactly the same.

You really are a wet blanket with blanket phrases like that.

FM

I now have 4 Curados of sorts (2 BFS, 1 DC, and 1 150 K) and my fishing buddy has 2 Ks. None grind and all are smooth. I haven't seen anything really geary from Shimano in awhile.

This is the beautiful sound of the micro module. If this doesn't bother you, consider yourself extremely lucky.
https://youtu.be/ZaiEjKdfgdM?si=zQEv9LW2AmLoKCN9&t=77

At 1:17.

A plastic side plate by itself wouldn't bother me. What matters more is whether the reel stays quiet and the frame stays rigid after a season, because gear noise and handle slop are usually what make a reel feel cheap, not the material label. Plenty of good reels use composite side plates to save weight, so I would treat it as a preference thing unless you are buying a true abuse reel for heavy cover.

I knew there had to be a you tube "pro" in there somewhere. What a bunch of bull.

Put on your lab coat and oil it.

I find this funny. I also find reel reviews funny. It is not mysticism. Reels aren't "magic". They are just gears, bushings, washers, springs, and bearings. It is not a mystery it's just maintenance.

1 hour ago, Bass Junke said:

I find this funny. I also find reel reviews funny. It is not mysticism. Reels aren't "magic". They are just gears, bushings, washers, springs, and bearings. It is not a mystery it's just maintenance.

This would apply to a ferrari as well, but they're still charging $300k+ for one, so that's not a good argument. You could be servicing your Lada five times a year, and your Honda once per two years, guess which will have more issues? That's my experience with reels with plastic handle side plates, servicing doesn't matter, i service everything i have once per season, and have been doing so since 2013.

I just got a Revo STX that has a metal side plate. I'm glad it does. I also just got another Lew's Tournament Pro LFS that doesn't, but I really like that reel, so I'm fine with it. My other one has a S-ton of very hard mileage on it since '20 and is just starting to show its age. Any reel would after what I put that one through. Almost 100% fishing straight braid in pad fields. I also got another Fuego CT that doesn't have one, but for the price I paid for it, I'm fine.

That aside, I probably won't go out of my way to buy a Daiwa without this feature. Plenty of them below the Zillion have one these days.

When considering a reel that will be under constant heavy load, it is reassuring. It was definitely a factor in me picking up a pile of low gear Concept A2's (Brass gears + aluminum sideplate).

On 4/10/2026 at 6:08 PM, WetBlanket said:

  On 4/10/2026 at 4:19 PM, Bass Junke said:

I find this funny. I also find reel reviews funny. It is not mysticism. Reels aren't "magic". They are just gears, bushings, washers, springs, and bearings. It is not a mystery it's just maintenance.

This would apply to a ferrari as well, but they're still charging $300k+ for one, so that's not a good argument. You could be servicing your Lada five times a year, and your Honda once per two years, guess which will have more issues? That's my experience with reels with plastic handle side plates, servicing doesn't matter, i service everything i have once per season, and have been doing so since 2013.

Actually, a Ferrari is a perfect example of perceived value vs practicality. Just about every part of Ferrari is handmade to spec by a skilled craftsman, no mass produced parts, which is why they are so customizable. All parts are made with extremely light materials to improve performance. Those light materials can only handle a very minimal amount of use before they are no longer effective or completely fail.

In other words if Ferrari was a reel, it would be extremely light, look great and cast very well in the morning, but it would seize before sunset.

To get it fixed would cost just as much to get a new one. Except Ferrari refuses to sell you another reel because you actually used it to fish and destroyed the previous one, instead of doing the mid life crisis equivalent of an attention starved child saying "look what I can do!!!."