For many years I have tried in vain to sharpen my knives with various butcher's steels, diamond coated butcher's steels and other gadgets. None were successful. I have expensive knives (Gustav Emil Ern) and was getting very annoyed at how blunt they all were. Finally I have admitted defeat and just know I will never get the hang of sharpening knives the manual way.
I hesitated before buying this sharpener. Would it end up being another useless gadget, an expensive one at that, cluttering up a drawer? Fortunately my concerns were unfounded. Yes, it is expensive but it really does work. My knives are now incredibly sharp again.
One tip - don't expect to be able to restore a very blunt knife to sharpness straight away. My ham fisted efforts over the years had obviously well and truly ruined the cutting edges of my knives, and initially I had to make many passes of each knife through the two "Stage One" slots on the machine. I didn't keep count but it could have been 20-30 times. It sounds a lot but it didn't take that long really. And once a good cutting edge had been restored, subsequent sharpenings only need 2-3 passes through the Stage One and Two slots to keep knives razor sharp. All my knives are once again a real pleasure to use.
I highly recommend this machine.