Knife Sharpening

I’ve got a basic block of Zwilling J.A. Henckels knives. They are fine? Or were they when I got them? They got dull. I bought the HORL®3 knife sharpener to bring them back to life. It absolutely didn’t work after really committing to trying to get it to. Note how I’m not even going to link to HORL®3; that’s how much I don’t recommend that thing. I took them to one of those knife-sharpening vans that parks once a week at my local grocery store. Cost me $25 (with tip) to do 4 knives. Seems fine. Are they back to amazing?! You ask. No, they are not. They are a little better. But for the time/effort/money of taking them to a professional knife sharpener, the return just isn’t there. Why aren’t they sharper than 15-year cheddar? Do the knives just suck? Were they too far gone? Is the knife-sharpening guy just not very good? I honestly don’t know. I do know that I have a (fairly cheap) little knife-and-cutting-board set from REI in my van. I don’t use those knives nearly as much. They are…