Out of the box the setup and use is time consuming and uncomfortable. I recommend you buy one of their stands or make your own like I did.

I also carved the box to eliminate installing and calibrating the rods every time.

With these changes, I have fun making my knives super sharp!

If you are looking for a sharpening system and reading these reviews, you have probably been fooling around with stones and gizmos, like me, for years; I own a Chef's Choice model 110, Smith's Tri-Stone, crock sticks, etc. and I have never been able to consistently achieve a sharp knife edge without lots of trial and error. The "secret", of course, is maintaining a consistent, repeatable blade-to-stone angle while sharpening; one slip and all of the previous honing can be ruined. I was looking at the motorized belt sharpeners and surmised that instead of screwing up a knife's edge in hours, with a motorized system I could do it in mere seconds ! I was surprised that I had never come across this Lansky system before now, but once I saw it, it immediately clicked - the simplicity of a system where the knife is held in a clamp and the stones are at the end of a rod which pass through slots thereby allowing the user to repeat the same angle of hone through all of the different grits was what I was looking for.

The system itself is not "over engineered", i.e., not fancy, but adequate. The stones are only 1/2 " wide and 4 " long, at first blush this seemed kind of undersized, but once I used them it made sense. Because the stone moves over the blade ( not the usual knife moving over the stone), the narrow stones more easily conform to curved blades.
View the Lansky video to learn the correct technique; YouTube is filled with videos on how to do it wrong: sawing action on blade's edge, using oil on the diamond stone.

I wouldn't expect to have perfect results on your first attempt, like anything else worth learning there is a learning curve. After a few knives you will start to get the feel of how much pressure to use on the blade ( as the grit becomes finer, you will use less pressure: on the finest stone you will use a very light touch to just dress the edge ).
Based on other's reviews I opted to buy a stand ( clamp on model ). I tried to use the knife clamp without the stand and it was awkward; nothing to hold onto. While the stand doesn't hold the clamp rock solid, it provides sturdy enough purchase of the knife and keeps it off the table when you flip it over. I had to put thread locker on the clamp's rod's end stud to keep it in place and then a lock washer to hold it firm to the base to keep it from loosening up - if you buy one you will see what I'm talking about. One last thing, I thought I separately ordered the ultra fine honing stone - yellow holder - but inadvertently ordered the leather stropping hone instead. What a dummy. But, after using the finest diamond hone, I daubed a little red rouge from the Dremel polishing kit, onto to leather strop, and the strop did an excellent job of polishing the edge to a mirror-like finish along with a touch more "keenest" to the blade.

All and all I am quite satisfied with the whole Lansky system, and for the first time ever I have an entire knife block full knives that are as sharp as they were new and the means to keep them this way.

11/29/14:
Like I always say:" Anything worth doing is worth overdoing". I've since purchased the yellow and Sapphire stones to see if I could squeeze out that last little bit of edge. In my opinion there is a small, incremental improvement so I've added these extra steps when I want an especially sharp blade. Also, I purchased a set of extra wires to accommodate these additional stones. And not leaving well enough alone, I switched out the thumbscrew clamps for Phillips head screws. I discovered that one-inch self tapping sheetmetal screws have the same thread pattern as the thumbscrews; I cut the screws to about 3/8" (shaft length ), dressed up the threads, and permanently attached wires to each stone. The main reason I did this was to regain almost 1/2" length of usable sharpening stone surface and to have the stones all set up and ready to go without any assembly. Now, I need to gin up some kind of storage/carrying case for the these things...It never ends.

First, let me preface by saying that I'm a big fan of the Lansky sharpening system. I've been using one for about 25 years, and have sharpened easily a thousand knives. The only part I've had to replace was the Coarse grit stone (profiling blades uses a lot of grinding with the coarse stone). If you're going to sharpen knives and want a perfect edge, buy a Lansky.

Ok... the bad parts:
The holder has changed significatly. The older version was a machined aluminum piece with a stepped area in the jaws to support the spine of the knife. The new version is a bead blasted cast piece, which doesn't seem to grip the blades as securely. There's no stepped area anymore. As a result, the knife slips and slides around in the holder no matter how tightly the holder is clamped down. I'm probably going to try polishing the inside of the jaws to try to get a better grip. If all else fails, I'll cut a sheet of rubber to go between the blade and the jaws. I verified with Lansky that they have changed the clamp to a new style without the notch. But they found one of the older style in the warehouse and are sending it to me. I still miss the older style holder, as it had better clamping.

Problem 2:
When you install the rods onto the hones, there's a thumbscrew that holds the rod in a hole in the holder. When I tightened down the thumbscrew on the fine diamond hone, and the plastic housing around the rod hold fractured, and now the rod can't be held securely. Katherine in the customer service department sent me out a replacement, which is working fine.
Update: I got the replacement stone. Good customer service.

As I posted above, the Lansky system is awesome. The holder isn't as good as the old one, but it may work in and get better with age and use.

Here's a suggestion for using the Lansky with the new style holder: Get a roll of the blue masking tape that is used for edging while painting. Stick a strip of tape over the spine of the knife, in the clamping area. The clamp will grip the tape, and hold the knife very securely. When you're done, the tape peels off the knife without leaving any sticky residue.

Another suggestion for people who buy this kit... Dedicate the guide rods to individual hones and leave it assembled permanently... each holder has it's hole at a slightly different angle so you'll be doing a lot of fiddly bending of wires to get the hone and wire parallel and in the same plane.

Also, spare rods are available from the Lansky website (4 rods for 2 bucks before shipping). If you're going to buy extra stones (I recommend either the super Sapphire Super Fine Grit or the Ultra Fine with the yellow holder), buy spare rods.

Additionally, if you're going to buy more specialty stones, there is an empty Lansky box available here on Amazon. Very handy for storing the stones.

Updated the review with an extra star for excellent customer service, but only giving 4 stars because of the new holder design not clamping as well as the old one.

Just received my diamond hone deluxe set and have to say I'm impressed with the results. I'm fairly new at sharpening blades so at first I thought 20° was what I needed. I Couldn't form a good bur. I switched 25° and quickly got the bur I was looking for. I also ordered the ultra fine stone which got my pocket knife wicked sharp. Some people complained about the quality, but my guide rods were very straight and hones were properly glued in place. I hope to get many years of sharpening out of this set. Thanks Lansky, for a great product made in USA 🇺🇸

If you just can't hold the right angle with freehand stones there's this contraption. Great for reshaping that edge, but don't expect a highly polished edge.