When someone asks about what is the best longbow or best recurve most of the replys are going to be the opinion of the author, They like a certain bow and claim its the best in the land, of course not having shot all the bows there is no way to say mine is the best.. wheather it is a longbow or recurve there are a few redeeming qualities that make up a good bow. lots of bows fall into this catagory by the way. In my opinion the 1st quality that must be met is the fit and feel of the bow, with out much adjusting the grip has to get you to a consistent grip every time. 2nd with out having to go overboard with string silencers the bow has to be quiet. a quiet bow is an efficient bow, and this brings us to the 3rd quality that I like and that is speed, I like a fast bow but I can not give up the first 2 qualities for a fast bow. fast bows are more accurate in that they are flat shooting and you have less guess work in the tradjectory to deal with.. some bows are very fast but noisy most of the time you wind up adding multiple string silencers to the bow and in the end slowing it down to the point where the speed factor don't apply anymore.. some bows fit well and are silent but slow and the tradectory is akin to a rainbow that also is not acceptable. so in the end we look for a good fitting bow that is quiet and as fast as we can get with out sacrificing the 1st 2 qualitys.. Such a bow does exist and it is going to be different for everybody.. So to ask what is the best bow is a question with out an answer.. Now these are the things I look for in a bow and others may rate their priorities different..