Thread Brand Advice... Does it really matter which brand?

I agree with Robert stay with Madeira Poly !
I own around 8 embroidery machines of different sizes and I only use Madeira Poly, Magna Core Bobbins, Groz Beckert Needles and Good Quality Backing !

Savings a few pennies and ending up with a problem in my opinion is not a smart move. I have a bunch of RA thread that came with a closed shop that I purchased and Its still in my warehouse and will be sold on ebay because I have no desire to cause any issues in production by having another brand come into the mix.

Good Equipment will only run efficient in production if the needles, threads, digitizing, tensions etc etc etc are all correct !

Just like Robert said when your learning you dont know what you dont know, so its worth it to go with a brand that is well known and produces top quatliy products, even if they cost a few pennies more.

FYI
The China Threads that are cheap I have NEVER seen run well in production and I have seen them cause many a problem that was solved by removing them and replacing them with a cone of good thread !
Just like the China machines, they are cheap but not very productive.

Years ago Rayon was more popular than Poly but in recent years the trend is more to Poly thread. There are some people in the industry that will never switch to Poly and simply love Rayon thread but for the most part there are alot of benefits to using POLY thread over rayon and in production its much more efficient.

The original poly threads however were not very nice looking and they were brutal to the equipment that was running them. The Old Poly threads would actually cut groves in the thread path of the machine and it was harder to use and liked to Loop alot in production.

Those days are gone and now Poly looks almost the same as Rayon thread but has alot of benefits over Rayon.

Here is the bottom line.
Cost factor, Rayon cost more than Poly
Strength Poly is much stronger and lasts longer. (Shelf Life Issue)
Color Fast. Poly is much much more color fast than Rayon.
Final Appearance. Rayon has a little nicer shine but not much !

There is still alot of Rayon Fans that will never change but personally I changed to being an all Poly shop years ago and it eliminated some issues like colors running on garments that got wet to thread break issues from using a cone of thread that had aged out and was weak.

I prefer Madeira but there are other good threads as well.

PS One of the new trends is the Frosted Matt (Flat with no shine) and we have started using this on more and more jobs and it runs great and looks really good on small lettering.