This seems to be an area of different opinions.
It all depends on how high you cut the grass. Typically american built machines are designed to cut grass a bit higher therefore they 'vacuum' the top of the grass up for a cleaner cut and have a different blade placement in relation to the cutter deck (if you look from the front of the mowinf deck the bar blade normally sits a bit higher compared to Australian built mowers.
On Australian built mowers, they run a disc and swingback blade setup for a couple of reasons (for lower cut)
* cutter disc gives inertia in the cut,increasing torque
* thinner blade to 'slice' through tougher grasses we have in Australia.
Bar blades do last longer but must keep them constantly sharpened otherwise performance will be poor.
Swingback blades require constant replacement but are generally cheaper to replace
So my opinion is, it depends on how you cut and what height you cut. Hope this helps.
