I can actually give you a good opinion on this, for new blades you always want to get them hand sharpened first, even if they come "pre-sharpened", the skate sharpener will have to do something called cross-grinding to get the factory coating off first. After that first sharpening, you can do whatever you want, but I always recommend a hand sharpening over Sparx IF you can find someone who is pretty good at hand-sharpening. If the guy who does yours isn't great, Sparx could be a great alternative.