When I bought this, I owned a small, three-grit set of DMT sharpeners and decided this Fallkniven DC521 would be my first truly nice sharpening tool... I'd heard good things about Fallkniven products and I loved the idea of a fairly large, coarse/fine two-sided stone.Shortly after I bought the DC521, I started to find some negative reviews indicating that there appeared to be some problems with the surfaces not being flat or 'true. When my stone arrived, I was a little underwhelmed. The packaging was very 'meh' and the diamond plate on top of mine was definitely off axis from the ceramic below. Looks like someone had a bad QC day while gluing them together. Still, the aesthetics weren't what really mattered. So, I spent the past few months learning to sharpen well before posting this review.In my case, the stone is just ok. The coarse plate takes a good while to break in - it comes VERY coarse out of the box. And, there definitely is a small roll/hump in the diamond plate on mine. If I am sharpening a small blade that I can stroke on half of the plate, all's good. But, if I want to sharpen a longer blade, I can't get a true edge off the plate.The ceramic side is nice though, and (if the reprofiling work on the coarse side is true), I can easily get a shaving edge of a blade with good steel. Using light backstrokes, I can even loosely polish/strop the edge to refine the sharpening job.Several months in, the durability of both sides of the stone seems to be just fine, but I haven't had any drops/accidents. As advertised, both faces work equally well wet or dry.If I was pressed to make a purchase again, I think I would spend a little more and get the Coarse/Fine/XFine trio sets of the similarly-sized DMT stones. If I'm willing to put in the time with the DMT small stones I have (DMT W7EFC), I can get a noticeably more refined edge... This may be due to additional imperfections in the Fallkniven I just haven't identified yet, but the fact remains that the difference is there - and significant, I think, since the much smaller stones mean a lot more work.Still, if you're looking for a solid, dependable stone, this will not serve you poorly and it's priced competitively. I would just urge you to double-check the flatness of the surfaces upon receipt and pursue a warranty/workmanship replacement right away if there's a problem. I didn't know enough at the beginning to check...Great resultsDiamond side sharpens fast. Ceramic side hones the edge. Finish with a leather strop and you have a razor sharp knife. I made a little non slipping board to mount the sharpener in. It really helps.Faster delivery than expected nice general duty stone. As a stand alone stone with 2 sides this will give you a nice semi toothy but sharp edge which is perfect for outdoor use knives. It will not give you the polish needed for chef, carving, or boning knives so another stone and stop would be be needed in these cases. But it works very well for general use blades and fills a gap in my stone set between Arkansas water and diamondHusband sharpens knivesThis is a "Top Quality" stone for Fallkniven blades, I own 4 of their laminated blades and this stone works well on the VG-10 Laminated and the COS Laminated blades, I do use a Fine Diamond then a Black Arkansas stone followed with a Sapphire Stone for final finish - I am obsessive about "Sharp"Sin duda la mejor piedra de afilar manual.Really great. From dull to shaving in a few minutes. I keep it I my backpack and use it all the time. Comes out of the box a bit rough. I used a knife I didn't care about and got rid of the roughness.I am very pleased with this stone. Having never been much good at hand sharpening knives, I find that with this stone I can easily get an edge sharp enough to shave hairs from my arm. It is easier to find and maintain your sharpening angle than it it is with oil or water stones and for this reason I think it is a very good stone to learn hand sharpening . The ceramic side is not as fine as I expected but the manufacturer says it will become finer after a break in period. It will produce shaving sharpness but if you want a mirror finish you will need finer stones.This sharpening stone is the best that I have ever owned. In a short time I have been able to put a super sharp cutting edge on all the knives in our house.Just like their pocket stones, incredibly quick cutting diamond surface Id say lower then the 600 grit they specify and the ceramic side is excellent as always on the fallkniven stones, id recommend buying a stone vice of some sort for thisVery good sharpening, easy to useGets better with use.