Spyderco Sharpmaker Need Diamond Rods and Thoughts?

[Witterings]

I've very recetly got a sharpmaker and if I'm honest my 1st impressions aren't great ... or a couple of the knives I've got are rubbish.

One of my bigger kitchen knives I tried using the Sharpmaker and wasn't overly impressed so used my Lansky Turn Box after and was able to get a much better edge with it as I have with a couple of other knives as well.

2 knives which were part of a set won't seem to sharpen at all (nor with the Lansky) so wonder if they're just a really hard material.
When I've done them in the past I've used a double sided diamond stone, the 1st grit is 300, then 1000 and then gone onto a whetstone with 1000 and 6000 and have got a decent edge on them but the Sharpmaker just isn't touching them.

Interested to hear other's thoughts / experience and if you've bought the Diamond or Cubic Boron Nitride Rods and if it's made a lot of difference.

Generally people seem to speak so highly of the Sharpmaker but at the moment it just doesn't seem to be working for me and wondering if I'm doing something wrong, I was hoping this was going to be a much quicker / simpler solution to using my whetstone.

[whippersnapper]

I have an old Sharpmaker with just the ceramic rods. In my opinion it only seems to work for maintaining the edge so I seldom use it. With just the basic rods it doesn't seem any better than anything else that are easier to grab if I want to touch up an edge quick. Never owned the diamond sticks.