Up until today i had been shaving with Merkur 42C, which was my first razor and i found it quite good, after 4 months shaving, i could generally get 2 passes comfortably and then some irritation/nicks with the 3rd pass on occasion. Today i got a muhle R89 as a gift and i just did my first shaving in 2 days with a personna red blade and i did a full 3 pass shave, no nicks and when i used the alum block at the end almost no irritation/burning! If this continues i might not ever go back to the merkur!