These are both classic carbon clad knives. As an avid home cook, I have never had issues with the cladding.
Regarding the quality and passion behind Takeda's knives: Ignoring the edge profile, which has too much belly, the quality of the forging on the new knife is far superior imo. It is thicker at the spine, has a great distal taper and thins out from spine to edge. I can echo this for my 240 gyuto as well. The secondary bevel, however, is a bit too obtuse. I have noticed in general that all 3 of my Takeda's have come with the 1200grit finish with no stropping and thus a wire edge. This was somewhat disappointing for me, as the review on zKnives said that his came polished to 4k(ish?) and poppin sharp.
Quantum,
Thanks for the sale. It is a gorgeous knife. The heavy brass spacers help bring the balance back towards the handle just a smidge. Feels nice and gets stuck in my board if I throw its weight around too much. I will be starting a new thread here soon with a semi-guided freehand system I've devised (non-proprietary). While I do enjoy sharpening completely free hand, its nice to have a easier way to get a good convex japanese edge on things.