What I found was that the jump between 8k (Norton) and 15k (proyan) seemed too big and the 15k did not perform well after the 8k but after 12k (sharpton) it performed quite well and all the prickly, overhoned feeling 12k sharptons are notorious for went away. I, however did find it noticably sharper but that was based on the shave and not on tests lol like the hht or others so that may be a little subjective. I have used it with slurry just about every time as mine came from Amazon with a little stone that looked like a small piece of a flattening stone. It seems to be sic as it is very hard as is my 15k. What surprised me most was how quickly it cuts for a high grit stone. Honing with slurry the slurry starts to show very dark swarf after only one or.two strokes and keeps getting darker with every lap.