Jeff,
I am inclined to agree with Up_The_Irons. It depends more on how your A-game style matches up with the oil pattern and the lane surface. I am currently bowling in 2 houses at opposite ends of the spectrum.
1. Brunswick Anvilanes - one of the slipperiest lane surfaces currently made. Only when they are using less oil than medium oil can I even contemplate using a pearl. My "dry" lanes ball for this house is a 1500 grit sanded, gloss polished Ebonite Tornado Seafoam (the old solid resin).
2. AMF 30+ year old wood house. They were going to put in synthetics this past year, but their budget was blown when the A/C-heating system had to be replaced. The last re-surfacing (rebuild of all the wood) actualy had to repair holes in the wood just over the foul line where you could see through to the support structure underneath. The old manager (since moved by AMF to where he was needed more) took me for a tour of the midlanes 2 years back. You could see HUGE gaps between the boards, where no matter how much oil he applied, it just seeped down between the boards and disappeared, when it wasn't carried down.
In this house, even a ball as mild as my Bolt Pro (with pin above the ring finger and polsihed) often rolls out. Pearls, mild and weak, are the order of the day. In desperation, before buying a new pearl urethane, I am trying a Sonic-X solid; the solid only because it seems to be weaker in the backend than the Sonic pearl. Actually my Barrage worked pretty good here last Monday; I shied away from it because it was too strong earlier in the season. But things change.
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"Just because you can do something does not mean you should do it."
