Go for the forged Shun or Global knives from Japan, each hand made by craftsman, Wusthof is good but the Shun & Global are highly rated..... forget about Henckels ..... most of them are stamped and are made outside of Germany....... U could get a good set of Shun's for under $600 ....

FYI... Shun's cutting edge is ground to an angle of 16 degrees making them extremely sharp, compare this to the best German knives which are only ground to only 22 degrees... something to think about