I find it hard to spin and turn on the Jackson Freestyle boots+Ultima Aspire XP blades I bought.
The rocker radius transition point between the main rocker segment and the spin rocker segment is smoothed out, so I can't feel that point on the ice. Also the two blades are inconsistent in shape with each other.
The local shop has new boots+blades of the same type. The transitions are nice and abrupt. But the profiles of the left & right are different. If I line up the spin rockers, the backs depart from each other by roughly 1.5 mm.
Is that normal for Ultima now, or at least for Aspire XP? (When I placed my old Ultima Matrix 1 runners next to each other, I could not see any visible difference. But they were more expensive blades than Aspire XP, and bought in the early 2000s.)
I may be thinking about this all wrong.
The primary reason I bought the used skates are so I could experiment with cutting down the heel height. That could mean my foot interacts with the blade in a very different manner.
E.g., in my current heel height - which is about the same for my old boots and these used boots - I am normally at or beyond my comfortable limits of toe point. Which means I have to roll my whole body forwards to touch the toepick. But if I cut down the heel, I would normally be in a less pointed position, so I would be able to point my toe to reach the pick - like I guess most figure skaters do. I might even need a more aggressive toepick.
So until I have actually cut down the heel, worrying about blade shape is pointless.