Schtoo
I don't have any evidence to back up anything, but...

That chunk of wood in the vise is hinoki, a moderately hard softwood. It's full quatersawn, and the grain is wavy. I'm using it for folks to plane for fun, but it's a very, very expensive piece of wood if, IF, I actually paid for it.

Also, it's completely unforgiving of a non-sharp blade. Doesn't matter what the heck you do with pitch, chip breaker or anything else, if the blade is sharp and the cut if fine, it'll plane cleanly in any direction. If the blade isn't properly sharp, you'll get tearing and a gappy shaving out of it.

I've planed plenty of wood, as have some folks who had a play with the planes (guy in the green shirt, if you ever meet him and he says something, pay attention. Very, very close attention) and we were all surprised at how that piece of wood behaved, simply because it's not easy to find wood that 'nice' nor so good at being a diagnostic tool.

But fresh off the stones, there is no real difference. Even 'meh' stones will get a blade sharp enough to do the job on that plank.

It's after taking off an inch or so, 0.001" at a time that you start seeing what difference the sharpening method actually makes, with no other variable involved. Same planes, same blades, same shaving thickness and end result on the wood, just different stones.

Oh, thinnest shaving I can get off that plank without the shaving being just dust is approximately 10 microns. The shaving looks like lace/tissue and the surface is absolutely polished. Completely pointless, but it's cool to look at and cool to play with. It also earns brownie points here, so it's not that useless...

Stu.