Sorry Will but just had to Quote this.....
Probably a lot of guys posted here are very active on the Boards, they exchange Information, they write to each other, they read a lot, the stay up the night long here and many are experienced honers.
Most of them tried out a lot of stones, some of them own many many stones.....and yes its difficult to say that a stone is not good without testing it...
But we all know what has been in the past and it wasnt "that often" that new Stones were brought to the market or the forums or cheap stones have been established as high end stones, thats a fact...
I guess with the kind of criticism I've seen here, I don't imagine many new stones would stand a chance -good or not.