The 11spd cassette I currently have is the 42t Shimano XT.

I’m thinking I might swap that out to a 46t.

Tempted to go Sunrace though as there seems a better spread across the range with a smaller jump up to the 46.

Shimano: 11-13-15-17-19-21-24-28-32-37-46

Sunrace: 11-13-15-18-21-24-28-32-36-40-46

Not too worried about quality of the Sunrace as I have the 10spd 42t on my HT which works fine.

So looking at the ratios above which is the better?

Sunrace all the way, I couldn’t get on with the poor spread of ratios with the Shimano. Its also got the blingy anodised red spider which went with my bike! As you mentioned durability is fine and shifting is just as crisp as the XT.

I have the Xt 46T on a few bikes and that jump is big, works well apart from really sh1tty conditions in which case my gearing starts playing up, I’m thinking of going back to a 42t and dropping back to a 32t chanting

Maybe just winter and ground conditions and the bike caked in mud that is making me think its the gearing is the issue
The 42t definately feels smoother and hassle free for me, as you say I’m happy with a sunrace cassette on my 1×10 cotic

The SunRace was our choice. It has only one alu sprocket and with the 40t, you can stay on the steel one longer before bailing out.

The Shimano has two alu sprockets and you’ll be on them sooner.

I have the Sunrace. It’s dope.
Xt has way bigger jump, Sunrace has beautiful red spider.
No contest.

I like the XT, the jump makes sense as it’s like having a bail out gear for really steep climbs then closer ratios for the rest of the block for the other 99% of the time.

I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure the Sunrace is lighter as well if that sort of thing matters to you.

You could drop down the size of your chainring instead?

Three bikes with the Sunrace on here.
All have been spot on.

I had the Sunrace too. It was awesome. I’m back to 42t as my new bike has SRAM GX11 but with a tiny 30t up front.

Could just go back to two chain rings up front ….

daviek – Member
You could drop down the size of your chainring instead?

Agreed, that the smarter solution. Switching to SRAM XD in 10-42 too has proved great for me.

Double chain ring LOL.

I’ve got an xt 11-46, and while it’s been faultless and the durability is good, I’ll probably go for the sun race next time as the xt jump is noticeable and I spend more time in the lowest gear than I would normally because of it

The Shimano range makes more sense to me. They use the normal rhythm step ratios for the main block to give you jumps of 10rpm when pedalling. The bottom two large sprockets mimic dropping to a smaller chainring nicely so giving you the exact same gears you were probably using on 2×10.
Evenly spaced sprocket sizing makes no sense to me and suggests sun race just spread them evenly without really putting any research or thought into it. Nothing wrong with that, but I can’t thing of a good riding/performance reason I’d want big jumps all the way across the block.

Just picked up a Sunrace 11-46 to pair with a SRAM set up too. Quite a few options with e13s new 9-46 (but XD only) or a very expensive garbaruk 10-46 option (but massively lightweight)

Sorry to thread hijack, has anyone had experience of running the sunrace 11-46 with a mid cage shimano derailleur?

As a note on the e13 cassettes I tried one out for 6 months and was not overly impressed by it. They ran really well at first and it was a great way of getting more range, but found the smallest three cogs began to skip under load after a few months, particularly in the 12T cog, replaced it under warranty and the same happened with the next one. Got a refund and went back to my current sunracec 11-42.

Thanks chaps.
Think I might go with the Sunrace as haven’t had any issues with the ratios on my 10spd.

Sunrace all the way. No issues with 11-46 cassette, either wear/quality or sprocket spacing.