New finishing stone ideas.

Imanishi ceramic water stone, how are they as a finishing stone? I am looking at getting a finishing stone to replace my rather poor King 8000 I am currently using. I am somewhat restricted because I pay cash for everything I can, so I am limited to the stones my local Lee Valley carries, the Imanishi and the sigma power II.
Most of my tools are a2 or pmv11 steel, and I get good edges, but not great ones. Would love to get the kind of edge that makes a crackling noise from splitting atoms when you use the tool. :-)
I have sorted through most of the discussions here on the Creek, and am left confused, especially as I am limited on vendors.
Any suggestions?

You might ask in your local store if anyone who works there has purchased the stones. They may have had feedback from some people who have bought the stones.

Sometimes I wish I had the finances to try all the different stones out there. Recently due to cold weather my oil stones have been earning their keep. I did bum a hunk of jasper off SWMBO from her collection of rocks. It is very slow but for an oilstone it leaves a nice polish on a blade.

jtk

You could use a money order from the post office.
Get the exact price with shipping on what ever stone you fancy and get the money order made out for that and mail it to 'em.

Atom crackling
I like it. Richard Feynman didn't use a wood plane but hey . . .
On the other hand I do hope you fail to get them to crackle as well as he did.

Yeah, the other complication is that someone wants to buy this for me as a combined christmas/birthday present. So it's LV for stones, I think.

Imanishi are a big manufacturer and they make high quality stuff. I have not tried the Imanishi from LV but if I were getting anything of thier waterstone collection it would be the Imanishi 4k or 8k.

from the LV site:
The fine 4000x and 8000x resin-bonded Imanishi stones need just a spritz.

being resin bonded they might be a little like shapton or the super stones. though if I were you I would get somthing else you need from LV and get a snow-white 8k from Japan, just give a friend cash and ask him to order it for you.

Speaking of stoners
. . . er I mean guys who know all about stones . . .:p
anybody seen David W. ?
I hope he is OK