Originally Posted by
rpenmanparker
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Even given that Shimano forges aluminum better, (I have no reason to believe this, and I remember how for decades Shimano's aluminum was thought inferior to Campy's. The more things change, the more they stay the same.) what are you saying? Does the metallic morphology affect the shifting significantly? Is Shimano able to achieve a ring shape, tooth profile, stiffness, etc. with their superior forging that is unattainable by FSA? Something else? I just don't think so. If there is a real Shimano superiority in shifting, it would most likely be due to design, not manufacturing. But as I have said many times, I push the FD lever and it shifts. Every time. Immediately. Both ways. What would you be scoring that would be higher for Shimano than FSA?
I think that Shimano and Praxis are of the very few chainring makers that use a cold-forge process - feel free to look up information on the process and decide for yourself whether their reasoning has merit; I think that it does.
As far as anecdotal evidence - my Gossamer shifts like crap. No comparison vs a Shimano model (BB30 frame and I don't feel like messing with adapters), but my Force crankset shifts to the big ring considerably better.