It's time to choose!

Which of the two do you prefer, and why?

Daiwa. Easier for me to dial in. VBS was also easier than SVS Infinity for me. I own all 3 and several other braking systems.

When SV is good, it's good. Zillion SV? Rocket launcher. Tatula 100 SV? Skipping reel destined for skipping. You want to cast? For any sort of distance? How dare you.

I do hear that the new 150 SV is impressive though.

The newer MGL spools have unlocked something in SVS. '22 Bantam casts forever and handles relatively lighter weights.

I think Mag Z is my favorite still. The Tatula 80 might be the perfect 10-12 lb fluoro reel.

I don't have to choose thank you very much haha I have a ton of both.

SVS every day of the week- and then some.

I started on baitcast reels with magnets. You can never turn them off. Always on. I was very glad to finally be able to move away from them in early 1990's as Shimano switched over. Best thing they could have ever done for me anyways.

With SVS I can get a true free spinning spool. Can't do that with magnets.

Another awesome benefit of centrifugal brakes is that they are not operating at full braking ability during entire cast. They are only on proportionately applied to the spool based on rotation speed. So the SVS brakes really only work effectively when needed at the top of the cast, and as the spool slows down so to does the braking effect. It just magically goes away when not needed.

It really couldn't be any more perfectly designed. Unless they added a computer to do the adjusting. Which Shimano did with their DC reels. I have yet to use one of those. No need to. My SVS works well. So well I don't need the extra help.

So some of those other companies who still use magnets had to "engineer" ways to separate the spool from the magnets with their own various designs reacting to spool rotation speed. So they get to call theirs "centrifugal" as well when its really not. The magnets are always on and very close to the spool. Those centrifugal devices in magnet reels really are more smoke and mirrors than really changing the magnets effect on the spools. They do not move the magnets much more than a 1/16th of an inch and if lucky might even reach 1/8 of an inch. How much magnetic flux density is removed from a spool with this little of distance change? It can't be much. So its not like one can turn off the magnets and create a free spinning spool. Just not possible. One day maybe reels will have electro magnets that can be turned on and off as needed, but we are not there yet.

I've tried them all and keep coming back to SVS. The only reel I use that has magnets is an old Rick Clunn signature series Bass Pro reel I used for flipping and pitching and fortunately it comes with both brakes, both magnetic and separate centrifugal brakes as well, but I don't need either on that reel.

I think it boils down to which type of braking a person can adjust best to, or prefer more. For me it is SVS while for others they may have adjusted better to the magnets. Once I left the magnets behind in early 1990's I never looked back. For my own personal reels, today I won't waste a penny on reels without SVS.

90%of my baitcasters are Daiwas. They,magnets, are what I've been used to and the only time I cast for distance is when cranking. Truth be told, I can cast farther, with less effort, with them than any of the reels I own with brakes. It boils down to familiarity for me.

No matter, I use both and my highly educated thumb!

I thumb, therefore I am.

On 5/29/2026 at 8:45 PM, FloridaFishinFool said:

It really couldn't be any more perfectly designed. Unless they added a computer to do the adjusting. Which Shimano did with their DC reels.

On 5/29/2026 at 8:45 PM, FloridaFishinFool said:

So its not like one can turn off the magnets and create a free spinning spool. Just not possible. One day maybe reels will have electro magnets that can be turned on and off as needed, but we are not there yet.

DC reels are not related to SVS reels. This second statement is actually describing how DC reels operate. They are electromagnetic reels that constantly adjust the braking force. So we do have the technology and it works.

SVS reels are great. Centrifugal reels are a time tested technology, but they aren't a perfect solution under all circumstances. Of the three primary braking systems found on modern Shimano reels (SVS, FTB, DC), 2 of the 3 are magnetic.

On 5/29/2026 at 8:45 PM, FloridaFishinFool said:

Once I left the magnets behind in early 1990's I never looked back.

The magnetic systems of today are a far cry from the systems of that time period, as both FTB and DC reels show.

On 5/29/2026 at 8:45 PM, FloridaFishinFool said:

They do not move the magnets much more than a 1/16th of an inch and if lucky might even reach 1/8 of an inch. How much magnetic flux density is removed from a spool with this little of distance change? It can't be much.

Small changes in distance make a big difference with magnetic fields and it doesn't take very much force to slow down a reel for the purposes of controlling spool speed. This is why dynamic magnetic braking systems like FTB can be effective.

The title of this thread is "SVS Infinite or Daiwa Mag brakes. Which is better to you?" And that's what I tried to write albeit rather unsuccessfully- and by intentionally leaving out one particular brand name that caused some miscommunication with my comments above about different brands combined to be about just Shimano, rather than as meant to read about more than one brand simply not mentioned to avoid heated exchanges we have seen in the past. In my opinion one particular brand is overly aggressively defended. I find that alone interesting. Moving on...

I am not interested in the differences of magnets in reels from 1985 to now in 2026. I am sure things are improved. Does not matter. Magnets are always on and FOR THEM they have not yet reached electromagnets that can be turned off to suit some reel owners preferences. This was not a Shimano reference.

In the 1980's I exclusively used Shimano baitcast reels with magnets. And avoided other brands because I did not care for how they built their reels. I landed on Shimano over 45 years ago and still there today.

Back in 1985 these magnetic-only reels were my main reels. I had so many of them I was supplying them to the author of the Shimano history book on Banatam reels. Some of my reels are displayed in that book.

With this particular Black Magnum reel was at the top back in 1980's because of its fighting star mechanism. I am one of those who really likes this feature, and still use it on spinning reels to this day- and I wish more reels had it.

By the early 1990's I had followed Shimano's engineer's switch over from magnetic to centrifugal reels, and these Curado 201B's became my primary go to reels for years. Magnets have been completely removed by this time but Shimano has never publicly stated why. (I wish someone would write a book about this because you know there has to be a great story in there as to why this major shift happened.)

I still have one of these old green bean reels as they were called. Shimano made a complete switch off of magnets to 100% centrifugal. And I was very very thankful indeed! Finally someone was making reels I could adapt to very well.

Shimano created this version of SVS shown below which I used and discarded. It does not work for me how I wanted it to. I struggled with this SVS braking system, and won't use it any more because it simply was not effective enough for me and when I have to use more and more brakes something is wrong. This one was mushy for lack of a better word. Unresponsive in my opinion. So Shimano engineers improved upon it.

Today I use exclusively this red type of improved SVS brakes shown below. And I use only 1 brake turned on, 3 off and barely use any of the 1 brake turned on with the dial setting around 3 or 4 and I am good to go. Almost a free spooling setup. Can't do that with magnets of any brand. A recent article about the above brakes has this title: "Bomb Casts With No Backlash: Shimano Curado 150M Casting Reel Review"

So my point is, I prefer reels that can deliver 100% free spooling with ZERO braking to start off with. (Always on magnetic reels of any brand are never there!) And I use so little of the SVS brakes now my reels are darn near close to free spooling now and it works great for me.

I cannot do this with ANY magnetic reels. Simply not possible and I have yet to find one that even comes close. As stated when those other brands can give me a 100% free spool and brakes that can be turned off 100% then maybe I will take a look. Until then I am stuck right here until Shimano improves even this one.

Kind of funny when other people grab one of my combos and try to cast it they invariably backlash it not realizing there is so little braking used they have to be all thumb.

I need just a touch of braking at the top of my cast and that's it. Do not want any braking in operation past the top of the cast. As it is slowing down it should be all free spooling & thumb only.

Magnets are always on. Always affecting the cast. This bothered me to the point of walking away from all magnets forever in casting reels. I still have magnets in my flipping and pitching reels, but I could remove both of the brakes in those reels and not miss them.

This thread is about our preferences and why. For my part I have tried to avoid condemning any particular brand in this thread, and tried to stayed focused on the brakes as the title of this thread requested. I will not use always on magnets. Not going back.

Shimano DC reels I have used and like and I want one, but not enough to buy one. Why? I don't have problems casting with SVS. DC reels are made for people who don't have a well trained thumb in my opinion, and who have great difficulty in casting a baitcast reel so they opt for one that does it for them.

They are trying to create reels that will cast fine with no thumbing required. All of them are improving no doubt, but going in different directions and we humans simply flow into that scenario with what our human condition adapts to, or adjusts to better, or more quickly, and we tend to stick with it. I certainly have.

Preferences for one or the other are simply learned repetitive muscle training. Some people can go back and forth with no problems.

If I were given one of those aggressively defended reels, the only way I would use it would be to remove the magnets to achieve a reel closer to what I prefer. It must start with a 100% free spool situation so I can adjust up from there. I can't make it any clearer.

Make a reel with magnets that can be turned off -100% off- and I would try it. Until such a time, Its Shimano all the way. 45 years of Shimano and very happy with SVS today. There is nothing else out there for me right now.

The correct answer here is both. If I'm throwing a crankbait where I'm trying to throw it max distance, SFS is going to be a better choice as I will actually get much better distance than the Daiwa reel can get with the brakes at 0.

However, if I'm throwing a jig, which I may be pitching, skipping or throwing short targeted casts and I don't want to worry about dealing with an occasional bird's nest, Daiwa's mag brakes is a much better choice.

2 hours ago, FloridaFishinFool said:

This thread is about our preferences and why.

I'm not addressing your personal preferences, I'm addressing the why. The usage of magnetic fields to help us control spool rotation is simply so much more varied and nuanced than you're letting on. Even if we just limited it to Daiwa systems, which ones are we even talking about? The thread title is problematic, to say the least.

Yeah turn a Daiwa brake to 0 and tell me it's "always on" 😅

1 minute ago, PGA Dropout said:

Yeah turn a Daiwa brake to 0 and tell me it's "always on"

While there is always a small amount of braking there, the question becomes how much. The magnetic braking force changes significantly with even small changes in distance between the magnet and inductor. Anybody can take something like an SV reel and put it on 0 and on 20 and see the enormous effect it has even at free spool speeds.

For centrifugal brakes it is not like they turn off 4 nanoseconds into a cast. Any brake block you have turned on are always engaged it is just that they're so dependent on spool speed that by the time the spool has slowed down at the end of the cast the braking force is often times negligible to non-existent depending on just how slow the spool got.

We have to be careful of making too many generalities between systems, especially with magnetic braking because there are so many divergent braking profiles amongst different reels but it's not as simple as to just suggest centrifugal systems only effect the start of the cast and magnetic systems are more impactful throughout the cast and therefore centrifugal will just cast longer. For some users in some reels in some applications that may be true, but then in other situations it is completely reversed. The peak braking force of a centrifugal tends to be quite large at high speed and that often tends to even out the discrepancy vs a reel that may brake less but for a longer period.

7 minutes ago, brophog said:

While there is always a small amount of braking there, the question becomes how much. The magnetic braking force changes significantly with even small changes in distance between the magnet and inductor. Anybody can take something like an SV reel and put it on 0 and on 20 and see the enormous effect it has even at free spool speeds.

For centrifugal brakes it is not like they turn off 4 nanoseconds into a cast. Any brake block you have turned on are always engaged it is just that they're so dependent on spool speed that by the time the spool has slowed down at the end of the cast the braking force is often times negligible to non-existent depending on just how slow the spool got.

We have to be careful of making too many generalities between systems, especially with magnetic braking because there are so many divergent braking profiles amongst different reels but it's not as simple as to just suggest centrifugal systems only effect the start of the cast and magnetic systems are more impactful throughout the cast and therefore centrifugal will just cast longer. For some users in some reels in some applications that may be true, but then in other situations it is completely reversed. The peak braking force of a centrifugal tends to be quite large at high speed and that often tends to even out the discrepancy vs a reel that may brake less but for a longer period.

Even if magnet is "always on", does it matter? Probably not.

The current SVS system is very good when combined with the newer MGL spools. I like them and will continue to buy Bantams if I develop the need for more Bantam.

But my SV Boost Zillion hangs with them.

2 minutes ago, PGA Dropout said:

Even if magnet is "always on", does it matter? Probably not.

If you don't want to have any brakes at all it does. Otherwise, probably not.

13 minutes ago, PGA Dropout said:

The current SVS system is very good when combined with the newer MGL spools. I like them and will continue to buy Bantams if I develop the need for more Bantam.

But my SV Boost Zillion hangs with them.

I'll take either reel any day of the week. The deciding factor for me isn't cast ability or braking or anything of that nature, it's the modularity of the 34mm Daiwas.

Always was curious on why people care about the micro braking force that is always applied on magnetic braking systems even when the mag dial is set to 1. It's not like it's overbraking your spool, you ain't casting overhead with the braking setting set to 1. Not to mention that the exact same situation happens with DC reels, and who's complaining about them not casting far?

11 hours ago, FloridaFishinFool said:

In my opinion one particular brand is overly aggressively defended. I find that alone interesting. Moving on...

Too late they've been triggered

1 hour ago, QUAKEnSHAKE said:

Too late they've been triggered

This is such a THEREELTEST thing to say.

This rapidly has turned into a big whizzing match when it was supposed to be opinions, and we're not going to do that.

LOCKDOWN!!