Say you finish with the same 5K stone. Does the 1K stone used make a difference? Lets say you use a 1K king, and a 1K Bester stone. No doubt you would get different edges with different qualities.
But then you take both edges to the same 5K stone. Aren't you left with a 5K edge specific to the 5K stone? Or what if you skipped the 1K stone, and just used the 5k stone (it would take a lot longer I assume to get to the same edge), would the edge be the same?