Originally Posted by
Patrick Chase
What were you shooting that the L-N felt markedly better, and what iron was in the LV?
I have the LV and have used the LN a bit. They have very different strengths and weaknesses, and I wouldn't describe either as unconditionally "better" than the other.
The LV is better at end grain, thanks to the option of lower blade pitch. You can realistically get down to ~37 deg with O1 or PM-V11, whereas the LN is 45 deg period.
The LN comes into its own if you need to shoot difficult long grain, because it's BD with a double iron. Insert obligatory exposition on the benefits of a close-set cap iron here.
I shoot end grain more often than not, which is why I have the LV. Of course they're both excellent planes in any absolute sense, and both can be made to do perfectly well at all shooting tasks. For example the LV can handle reversing grain, but requires a shallower cut and a steeper blade angle (which in turn increases cutting force and degrades the resulting surface a little) to avoid tearout. Similarly the LN does just fine at end grain, but requires a shallower cut to keep cutting forces within any given limit.
Obviously the Right Answer (tm) is to increase the budget to $1K and buy both.