Chef'sChoice 15XV EdgeSelect Professional Electric Knife Sharpener with 100-Percent Diamond Abrasives and Precision Angle Guides for Straight Edge and Serrated Knives, 3-Stage, Gray

Easy to use (please, read the included instructions) and has completely renovated my 1990s set of Henckel knives to near perfect sharpness in matter of a few minutes. Well worth the expense!

I'm embarrased to admit how much time and $$ I have blown over decades trying to get a knife sharpening technique that produces repeatable excellent results. I've tried: wet stones, dry stones, oil stones, water stones, gall stones, kidney stones. I've also tried (cringe) belt sanders, grinding wheels, and numerous other devices. I've wated endless YouTubes demos as well. Some worked better than others, but I found NONE that were easy to use while producing repeatable EXCELLENT results. UNTIL THIS ONEWhat did is for me was 2 ladies that demo'd this thing on YouTube. Regretably I can't find the link. In any case when I recieved this sharpener, I sharpened every knife (and I mean EVERY knife) I could get my hands on! It wants a 15 degree edge which works well for most culinary knives, BUT with patience, you can re-grind a 20 degree (or any other angle) to the 15 degrees. Not only does this device produce a "factory" edge, but the edge really holds up well, so I have not needed to fire it up since its initial run. I'm impressed, wish I had it decades ago.

I am not a chef. I am not a knife connoisseur. I am just a regular guy that loves to cook, have a half dozen knives and like to keep them sharp. My lot consists of a Victorinox Santoku (my most expensive one), a Chicago Cutlery chefs knife that I love because it was mi first knife and it has a very comfortable wooden handle, a serrated bread one probably from Bed bath anb beyond, a smaller IKEA 5" chefs knife for my kids because it is perfect size for their hands and a couple 3" and 4" paring knives I got from my mother in law that have no brand and look very proletariat.Really, that is all the knives I need. I never felt the need for any expensive knives as the ones I have were great...when they were sharp.I do have a steel I use before using the knives, but they were not near where they should have been.I have used flat stones. Found it difficult to keep the angle of the knife consistent and I never got decent results.Searched for a better method and came across the Spyderco system. Got that as it seemed simpler since the angle issue was taking care of. I got better results, but still, not extremely sharp. Looked at videos to see what I was doing wrong, but still could not get good results. Then I read about the Trizor XV in Cooks Illustrated and I thought, hmmm, this looks like the thing for me.So, it arrived today and I spent no time in getting to work on my knives. Love the heft of the apparatus, the functional, yet industrial design and best of all that it did not require me to take lessons from a Nepalese monk on some forsaken mountain on the third full moon of a leap year surrounded by happy goats and a couple oxen to get my knives sharp!Man, this thing simply just works. My knives got REALLY sharp. I was able to find the infamous burr (which I never got with the other methods, even after lighting a few candles to the knife goddess). The directions are simple, the operation is simple, the knives get sharp. What else do any of us mere mortals need? I got some grapes (no tomatoes on hand) that were a bit too soft and was able to cut veeeeeery thin slices without applying any pressure, simply by the weight of the knife.I am sure all the other methods out there are great and do an amazing job, they just don't work for me. As much as I would like to sit in my porch, a piece of straw sticking from my mouth while my hands massage my knife along a stone telling some punk kid in my best Australian accent "that is not a knife, this is a knife!" the reality is that between band practice, basketball practice, dance, Boy Scouts and all the other crap my kids get to do, I just need something a normal human can use and get awesome results in a sort amount of time.If that is you, you should get this thing. It really works very well. The noise is just a humming sound and not loud at all, then again my son is a drummer and I think that is fine too, so. But really, fairly quiet.Just pull on the left, then the right side. After a few times,12 in my first knife, I was able to feel the damn burr. Then unto stage 2, same thing, then stropping stage and voila, damn sharp knife!Like all of you normal people, I was worried about all those comments the master sharpening people out there make about how much steel this things remove. Well, let me tell you that after doing 6 knives, the amount of shavings captured by the magnet were enough to build me a small steel cottage in the country. Seriously now, there were shavings, but what can I say, it will probably take a lifetime of sharpening to make it noticeable on the knives.So take it from this middle age family man and stop wondering if you should get this mechanical, uncomplicated wonder and just do it. You won't be disappointed.

The sharpener did what I wanted it to do...take my go-to, mostly Santoku style knives, from gliding across the skin of a tomato to slicing through effortlessly. None of my manual sharpeners plus my steel wouldn't do that unless I used the steel on the knife before every use. I'm not a knife expert and was tired of never getting that really sharp edge, so I put up the money for this. I'm glad I did. I even loaned it to my dad to sharpen their woefully...horribly dull knives and he said it just flat-out worked. I made sure he followed the instructions. I saw a couple YouTube videos where people clearly had not read the instructions. There are very detailed instructions...I also wish manufactures would stop printing everything so small...this one is not so small that I need a magnifying glass, but still uncomfortable for aging eyes.The manufacturers video doesn't exactly match up with the manual. I think it assumes you have already re-ground the knife edge to the new angle and that video is for resharpening. The biggest problem with the video is the music and constant dialog. It would be much more helpful to hear the sounds of the sharpener working to compare how it sounds when YOU use it.Now the other cons:-It's not as automatic as I would like, meaning there really is some skill and very specific instructions to follow. I'm not sure I'm doing right still because I never achieve a burr as the manual describes. I'm OK with that because it sharpens my knives, regardless if the use matching up to the manual. There is a lot of emphasis on the speed at which you pull the knives through. They actually expect you to know what exactly 3 or 5 seconds is. Ever try to do that? I guess the 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi thing is as good as one can do. Those not from the southern U.S. probably dont understand that!-It could be faster. Granted, the purpose of this sharpener it to reshape the knife edge to a new angle, then maintain that edge, but its monotonous with a possible 20 pulls on each side...40 pulls just to get started. Also, it doesn't feel perfectly stable passing through...hard to know if you are holding it right. It doesn't feel perfectly smooth at the base and tip of the knife. Many uses may correct that but at first its hard to know if you are doing it right.-I did get a little bit of scarring on the side of a couple of knives as some has mentioned. This doesn't upset me much because the knives I'm sharpening arent expensive show knives. I would be a little mad if it scarred my 8" Victorinox chefs knife, but after years of owning it, I've never had to sharpen it! That day will come, I'm sure.Al in all, $160 is a lot of money, but this thing works, and if it works for years it will be well worth it. I wish I had followed someones advice and bought this years ago.