I'm still a Noob to the whole honing thing, so I'm not the best person to answer this question - that being said - I purchased one because I needed a finishing stone and was working on a (very) tight budget. I bought one through Amazon. It arrived nicely packaged. It required very little lapping to achieve a usable surface. It raises a nice slurry and it works wonders on my razors. It was an excellent investment. It does what I needed it to do. I use this after the Norton 4k/8k.

I plan to get a 16k the next few months just to sweeten the pot.