We got two of these units for our travel team yesterday. When they are on the road they will go with the club team and when they are at home we will keep them in the shop and use them if we are super busy or have overflow and the workers are buried. We did about 50 sharpens yesterday and my overall impression so far is good.
Edges are usually level or very close to level, off by half a line on a Wissota “Elite” Even Edge Checker or perfectly even. I would say the uneven edges are very rare, 95% of the time I would say the sharpening is spot on. I think its quite strange that multiple pairs in a row will be perfect and then one pair will not and assume this has to do with the general condition of the steel. The more mangled the steel or low quality, the more likely it will will not be perfectly 100% level and will sometimes require adjust of the Sparx alignment.
The finish is not as good as hand sharpening, which I kind of expected. I dont think its bad, but if you have been sharpening by hand or even using a Pro Sharp AS machine, its just not as polished and smooth. You can polish out any of the "marking" with a leather hone and "magic sauce" but it does require more attention to detail.
There are absolutely more burrs when using the Sparx which I find a bit annoying. When I hand sharpen I have little or no burr on the steel, regardless of the steel type. This is usually the same with Pro Sharp too. With the Sparx, even with the highest quality steel, it will usually leave a decent sized burr that has to be worked out. Not a huge issue, but it does require attention to detail.
Final thoughts, these are a great addition for club teams that travel and need consistent sharpening or for families with multiple players. I can see these being really great for low volume stores too, maybe doing 100 or less sharpening monthly, but a high volume store doing 400+ sharpening a month just doesn't seem like these would work well for such.
Ill add more information and feedback as we continue to use them but this is what I noticed in a very small-time using the machine.