I suppose I've been lucky with mine as well. My Cnat is a great finisher, when I bought a Jnat I picke up a Shoubudani. Unbeknownst to me the newer ones are hit & miss, but mine seems to be a solid performer. All 3 of my Welsh slates hit it out of the park. Call me biased, but I don't think a bad Arkansas stone even exists so all of those perform quite well. The only stone that's given me guff is my coticule, so 1 out of 9 or so tested razor stones needing a little extra work to squeeze a good shaving edge from really isn't bad. And it does work, it's just so finnicky I'm almost scared to use it and upset the burnished surface of that soft stone.