I finally ran into a SPARX machine last week at Lettermen's in Blaine MN. That's right by the famous Super Rink. They had two machines going as well as the hand sharpeners. I told them I wanted the SPARX machine to do our skates. The worker put one skate in each machine and they were done in a couple of minutes. I did not count the passes. When they were done they took them out and threw them on the counter, no edge checker or hdi. The finish looked great but there were a few burrs left and one of the edges was way off. Not good.
My point here is that this shop can't be making a very good name for the SPARX machine.