I'm flattered some of you guys think I am in competition with Zwilling Henckels. Really, I'm touched. :O
The thing is, I have as much personally invested in this as anyone here--in fact, much less, considered I don't own one. So what's up with everyone getting a burr in their butt about it? I mean, it's not up for debate, I've seen about a dozen at this point, and they all had over/under ground spots about he width of a dime on them at some point or another, touching the edge. They needed fixing.
The steel was good. Sharpens nice. And yes, there are other features of the knife. But when I make a list of what makes a knife, the grind quality is far and away #1. Second is heat treat. Third is profile. Polished choils, wood handles, and availability at Sur La Table are all pretty damn close to the bottom.
I just don't want to pay $400 for a factory-robot made knife. A human being can be employed to effectively make that knife, and adjusting to create a quality grind is free for people and horrendously expensive for knife robots. The reason factories don't do that is because they don't want to invest in the people--robots don't take breaks or change jobs--it's got nothing to do with the quality of the product.
I mean, these are the same price as Marko's knives.