I realize now that this is a really hard concept for me to elaborate on.

I have this thought that a razor should be so sharp that it glides across my face and removes hair with little to no felt pressure of the blade on my face, in any direction. With my DE, I can get that. The comb of the razor and the blade just seem to skim the shaving cream off my face, as well as the hair, but I really dont feel it doing any work. However, with my SR, no matter the angle I can feel that its there on my face. I have to apply a slight pressure and use more of an overlapping scraping type motion to seem to really get the hair off, but I know this thing is sharp as hell cause I can watch it pop hairs on my hair at will. However, the hair on my face is much more coarse so that could play a factor I suppose.

I know the ATG pass is a difficult thing to master, but I can pull it off to a certain degree with my Shavette so I would think that I would be able to pull it off with a regular straight as well. However I have seen some say that the ultimate test of a razors sharpness comes from how well it performs ATG. Could it be that I really just require blades that sharp to be able to get a good shave?

I just really dont want to go back to just shaving with a DE all the time. I really enjoy SR shaving and want to keep at it, but it seems a bit daunting right now trying to figure this current predicament out.