cheap vs expensive

My knife addiction recently crept up on me little by little in the past few weeks and I'm finding myself looking for knives again as often as i can. It has been out of my system for a good 3 years i think, i don't know how, but it's back. And there are 3 knives in transit as we speak.

But there is a difference now. I used to buy knives according to popularity, and on what others say performs best. But now, I have a preferred steel and I just look for cheap ones with that steel.

So my question is, is there really a big difference with the super expensive knives, let's say $500 and up ones on some websites than the cheap $100 ones you find on ebay and other websites?

Let's say they both have Aogami super… is there really a $400 difference on quality/performance of the "BLADE" itself?

I think the big difference will be fit and finish. Also to some extent not all core steels of same name can be treated equally since the way its forged and hardened can change the quality of edge it can hold drastically. Handle fitting, quality, wood, blade profile, etc. Then there's also stuff like cladding vs honyaki stuff, kurouchi vs mirror finish. A lot of what you pay for I think is the labor to make the knife prettier.

Part of me wonders, since the aesthetic and profile of so many knives are almost identical and there are so many "no name" brands with identical specs as the brand name ones, if the "no name" ones are like factory rejects, like the Homegoods of Japanese knives. lol

I've owned white 2 that was great steel and white 2 that sucked. I choose by maker and let the maker choose the steel

I agree, the tempering/ heat treatment of the particular steel at the edge matters. That is not to say that the less expensive knife has a poor heat treatment. For the truly obessed you should buy many and try them out for yourself. Report back on your findings. It is kind of a never ending quest though. Don Quixote would be proud of us.:evilgrin:

karloevaristo said:

Let's say they both have Aogami super… is there really a $400 difference on quality/performance of the "BLADE" itself?

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Blade geometry is very, very important. A knife with a minimally adequate steel and good geometry will cut well (for a while), while a knife with super steel and bad geometry will cut poorly (all the time). But one can find $100 knives with good geometry (even $17 knives with good geometry).

But for the steel itself, it isn't the steel that matters, but the steel AND the heat treatment. It is possible to have poor heat treatment that sinks a supposedly good steel. But one can find perfectly good heat treatment on $100 knives.

Since you can't see all the details of the blade geometry from the usual profile photo, and you can't see the quality of the heat treatment, there is value in good reviews, and listening to what others say performs best. Or you can trust the official specs, or you can gamble.

A good $500 knife won't cut 5 times better than a good $100 knife. So, no $400 difference in quality/performance of the blade alone. It might be 5 times more comfortable or 5 times more beautiful. Beauty matters - one is often buying a $500 knife as art (partially). A $400 difference in beauty is not objective (eye of the beholder, and all that). If it's a tool, pay $100. If it's tool + art, buy what you like (which might still be the $100 knife).

(And one can find $500 (and more) knives with bad steel, bad heat treatment, and terrible geometry. (More common is good steel, good heat treatment, super-duper fit and finish, and appallingly bad geometry and ergonomics - pretty, but non-functional.))

this one just arrived, i mean if you look at it, it's not bad at all… I bet if I didn't say the price, we would not have guessed it's only $80…

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/karloevaristo

aside from the markings on the handle that is…. :lol2:

I'll update tomorrow on how it performs when i get to work… it's going to be crazy tomorrow, so for sure it will be put to the test…

and oh, it's by hiromoto by the way… found it on amazon...

Nothing shows if you dont have a tumblr account.

http://karloevaristo.tumblr.com

how about this one?

Let's see how un even, over/underground that blade road looks the first time you sharpen it. Let's get a look at that ura after a sharpening or two as well. Not saying its good or bad, just saying lets examine this further. The finish is a bit rough with sharp looking spine and choil areas but that's expected with lower priced knives as said before.

I was expecting a gyuto--deba or mioroshi?

deba

Agree with what most have said. When you are paying the big bucks, you should paying for a smith's treatment of a given steel, a sharpeners skill (assuming the sharpener is different from the smith) and excellent F&F (if that is your preference). While certain steels are simply more expensive to procure, I agree with china on his original comment. You should be looking for a great smith/sharpener/combo of the two and don't worry about the steel. If the smith is excellent, you should get a knife that is both nice on the stones with excellent edge retention. I've seen those qualities, and lack thereof, across a variety of steels. If the smith/sharpener is excellent, the grind should be very well conceived and consistent, regardless of the type of grind. In the same way that I've used W2 knives that kill AS or PM in retention and ease of sharpening, I've also used knives with convex final grinds that suck, flat ground knives that kick ass, thick grinds that fall through produce, thin grinds that feel sticky and some things in between.
Long story short, all about your personal preference in terms of selecting the smith/sharpener, but then it is all about execution, not necessarily a grind type or steel.

karloevaristo said:

So my question is, is there really a big difference with the super expensive knives, let's say $500 and up ones on some websites than the cheap $100 ones you find on ebay and other websites?

Let's say they both have Aogami super… is there really a $400 difference on quality/performance of the "BLADE" itself?

Click to expand...

Based on what you've written, it seems obvious to me that you have never used a good knife in excess of even $400, or that your cutting technique is poor because you can't tell the difference between a great knife that has great steel and geometry and a cheap knife that has mediocre steel and geometry.

There is a clear difference. Heat treatment and geometry matter. While not all expensive knives have great steel or geometry, very few cheap knives have both. In fact, most cheap knives (less than $150) that I've used have decent geometry at best, except for a few exceptions. The best knives that I've used are all over $200. The very best knives that I've used, except for one I got second hand that was $200, have been over $400.

You can have a someone regrind or thin a cheap knife so that it performs well. However, from what I've seen, there are very few people who are skilled enough to do so.

mhlee said:

Based on what you've written, it seems obvious to me that you have never used a good knife in excess of even $400, or that your cutting technique is poor because you can't tell the difference between a great knife that has great steel and geometry and a cheap knife that has mediocre steel and geometry.

There is a clear difference. Heat treatment and geometry matter. While not all expensive knives have great steel or geometry, very few cheap knives have both. In fact, most cheap knives (less than $150) that I've used have decent geometry at best, except for a few exceptions. The best knives that I've used are all over $200. The very best knives that I've used, except for one I got second hand that was $200, have been over $400.

You can have a someone regrind or thin a cheap knife so that it performs well. However, from what I've seen, there are very few people who are skilled enough to do so.

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++++ Nice to see some common sense on this topic. Both in the earlier points and latter.
Lot of nonsense gets spewed about regrinding a blade, or even a true thinning for that matter. Simply garbage to think that after a couple years of messing around with stones that one is capable, freehand, and without a wheel/specialized tools (or even with those tools for that matter), can achieve a top tier grind/finish on any knife, let alone one that has already been ground/finished, is just laughable

Edit: Nevermind...I don't have a horse in this race.

i only have had the experience of using carters… I use to have both white and blue, but sold the white one… cause sadly that's the maximum that i can afford. but i have seen knives going from $1000, even $2000 and up, and I'm curious (cause i know i will never be able to afford those), are there knives in that price range that actually perform "way" better? is the price really justifiable on how it performs?

It really depends on how one spends the money. For example, suppose one gets a nice 10" forgie on the bay, then either tune it yourself or have it tuned by someone who knows what they are doing. If you do it, you have about $50 in the knife, if someone else tunes it maybe $100-125. You then have a that knife which is going to be about 60-61 HRC, great geometry, easy to sharpen etc. How much more would you have to spend to get a carbon steel knife that performs significantly better?

In my case, I would say about $350-450 to move up to a Devin ITK in 5100 or, if you like the shape, 200-300 to move to a Zwilling Kramer. I wonder what other people think?

(Now mind you I have a bunch of carbon and semi-stainless knives that cost between 150 and 500 and while I have fun with them, like many of them, none perform significantly better for the serious amateur cook than a tuned forgie.)

Stainless of course is a whole different kettle of fish...

Two cars can have same weights, very similar material composition, and the one will be called Lamborgini the other Ford Crown Victoria.

The more I move trough life, the more I understand that the toolchain is less important than the person using it for the outcome of almost everything. You have to be exceptional cook to have limitations imposed on you by the gear or ingredients you have, exceptional photographer to be limited by your DSLR and lenses, exceptional programmer to be limited by your stack (unless you work in enterprise, all enterprise frameworks are created to reduce the developer performance).

I think that only very skilled knife maker will be taken seriously when he says "This steel cannot be pushed far enough, to be suitable for the knife I want to make".

I think that the maker and their experience with the steel and the heat treat they can give makes all the diffrence in the world. I am with Theory on this one... let's see what the blade road and ura look like after a couple sharpenings. My experience says with a double bevel it is harder to tell till later down the road. Opening up a single bevel is a completely different animal at that price.

I mean you can see the poor fit and finish with just the hanle and ferrule in one of the pics you posted. An easy fix? Absolutely. But, again, at that price point and being a single bevel it would put up red flags for me with how they may have ground the knife.

chefwatson said:

again, at that price point and being a single bevel it would put up red flags for me with how they may have ground the knife.

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good point

Lizzardborn said:

Two cars can have same weights, very similar material composition, and the one will be called Lamborgini the other Ford Crown Victoria.

The more I move trough life, the more I understand that the toolchain is less important than the person using it for the outcome of almost everything. You have to be exceptional cook to have limitations imposed on you by the gear or ingredients you have, exceptional photographer to be limited by your DSLR and lenses, exceptional programmer to be limited by your stack (unless you work in enterprise, all enterprise frameworks are created to reduce the developer performance).

I think that only very skilled knife maker will be taken seriously when he says "This steel cannot be pushed far enough, to be suitable for the knife I want to make".

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If you have a Gallardo you want to swap for a Crown Vic, please let me know...
It only requires one to pay attention a bit in order to appreciate differences, nuanced or overt, in various knives. As I don't race cars professionally, I may not be able to extract every ounce of performance out out of a 458. That said, pretty sure I'd be able to appreciate the difference in performance and craftsmanship vs. a tuned Mustang...
With knives, that differentiation is equally as obvious I believe.

I don't have any 300 - 500 knife, but I can tell that the same steel is different, depending on the manufacturer. As a professional chef, I have to say that hand is more important than the knife, though knife is a precious tool. If you work in a professional kitchen though, and it might be very busy, and you have to move between preparation station and line, be aware that if an expensive knife falls down, most likely the tip will break 😰😱😨

Especially if it is blade heavy

I know this is a very difficult to quantify, but given a reputable knife maker (Aritsugu, Masamoto etc), would a honyaki be better than any other cladded ones?

If not, then does that mean honyaki is pure 'bragging rights'?

I was always one to think as above... it is the user, not the knife. But, after owning some good knives and some great knives, I can do things with the great knives I could NEVER do with the good knives. Without some serious work to the good knives, they will never be able to perform at the level of a great knife.

A bit of an example, my wife bought me a new chef coat for Christmas. It is a nice coat... Egyptian Cotton and all... but, it was a $25 coat and I spent close to 30 mins just cleaning off all the loose threads. I have the SAME jackets at work, but they cost $50 before embroidery and no work needed to make them look right. Just not the same...

The blade, the person doing the heat treat to the specific steel and the fit and finish are what make some knives worth more than others and what make something like a Carter just slay a Shun or Wustoff.

If you don't know... you just never will, until you handle one.

Please do not take this as condecending... not meant that way. Just don't think you have found the perfect knife for sub $100 without trying something + $300... these are not cutoffs for good versus great... just saying.

Honyaki vs. Cladded aren't even the same beasts... apples and oranges even in the same price range. They will have completely different geometery and grind due to the materials. What help are you looking for there?

Well, i have a friend who's travelling fro Japan, and i'm tempted to just get a honyaki from Aritsugu or Masamoto from there, since i see it's much cheaper than getting one from the vendors.

So i was wondering if it's every worth the premium.

HPoirot said:

Well, i have a friend who's travelling fro Japan, and i'm tempted to just get a honyaki from Aritsugu or Masamoto from there, since i see it's much cheaper than getting one from the vendors.

So i was wondering if it's every worth the premium.

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Are you a professional cook? If so, the honyaki may make a good choice, if not you should wait and try one after you've handled a bunch of other knives first IMO.

Being a scientist, but by not means more than a home cook, let me give you my take on this discussion.

There are several main factors that make an excellent knife, and like all things they are inter-related, but there is a priority ranking for them.

Geometry is critical. A thick knife with an acute edge will cut badly no matter what it's made of.

Heat treatment is critical -- no knife can perform well if it's too brittle or not as hard as it should be. Particularly important in very thin blades.

Steel is very important -- it must be able to function with the desired geometry. Less important than the geometry.

Profile is very important -- wrong shape, won't work for the job. This is more of personal thing, though, as one's work habits or style of use (or in my case, mediocre knife skills) go a long way to determining what is "best".

Fit and finish. Much more important if you are using the knife 8 hours a day or more, but only in terms of ease of grip and lack of irritation (and no gaps around scales for food to lodge in). A sign of attention to detail, perhaps, but can easily be a sign of appearance over substance!

Naturally all this just means there are no easy answers about price vs quality, but I don't think that "machine made" knives are necessarily better or worse than "hand crafted" knives. True, a real master might produce better knives once in a while, or even often, but they are inevitably more variable that well made "machine" knifes.

Bottom line you have to try them and see. A spectacular knife with superb performance would likely require more "personal" attention to make sure it's perfect, but if the automated machinery is set up and maintained properly, there is no reason a mass produced knife would not get very very close to the superb one. Obviously that won't be the bottom end of the market, as the steel itself required for a top notch knife cost more than the selling price of cheap department store knives, but it also need not cost $3000 to get an excellent knife.

You might get lucky and get a really good knife for $80, but outside of those like a Tojiro or Fujiwara that are really aimed at the professional market (no bling, durable, suitable for heavy restaurant use), you are likely to have to spend more to get a better knife at a higher price point. Anything related to custom manufacture it going to cost a LOT more, regardless of quality, even a poor smith has to earn a living!

More of a ramble than an answer, I guess, but you really do get what you pay for most of the time. Where you have to watch in knives is when you get into the "artistry" stuff -- weird profiles, high end marketing, and celebrity type marketing. $3000 for a 1095 blade with a weird profile and a handle at an odd angle made of day-glo colored micarta, well, probably not a superb knife, if a superb moneymaker for the smith! A superb knife in terms of cutting doesn't need any bling, just proper geometry and the correct profile for what you are cutting, made of steel that will support the geometry.

Peter