You are getting close to a very slippery slope that will not be easy on your wallet when you start working with hand planes and chisels. I have thousands of dollars invested in Lie Nielsen hand planes and chisels, and thousands invested in sharpening equipment. I can quit anytime I like...really.
When it comes to sharpening, I prefer the Lie-Nielsen honing guide, but many swear by the Eclipse and Veritas guides as well. The honing guide allows you to achieve consistent results for the plane irons and chisels. Whether those results are good or bad depends on your skills, but they will be consistent.
I have a collection of DMT diamond stones, King water stones, and Ohishi water stones. These are different approaches to the same end goal...a very sharp edge. My purchase of stones has been part of my learning process, and I think I will settle on the King stones once I build my sharpening station (this is another slippery patch on that slope). I also have the Tormek T-8 system for putting the primary bevel on all of the edges. I don't use the Tormek for the honing, but I'm sure it will work well.
Some will tell you just buy and try and hope for the best. That was the advice I received, and now I can say in all honesty that was bad advice. The best money I have spent, hands down, was taking the one-week "Tool Tuning" course by David Charlesworth in the UK. Although my Lie Nielsen tools worked great out of the box, they were much better after the tuning.
I am fortunate enough to be on the same side of the ocean as he is, and I have plenty of free time to take these courses. With the current lockdown, it is unlikely that David will be offering this course in the near future, but there might be similar venues in your area after this clears up. In the mean time, you can buy his videos from Lie Nielsen, or watch any of the great Paul Sellers videos on YouTube.
In a different scenario, when I started playing golf, a lot of my friends told me to buy the best set of clubs I could afford and go to the driving range and hit balls. Two friends told me don't spend anything on clubs, but use the money on lessons. I bought the lessons at the local golf club and used their loaner clubs to start with. A while later, after one of the lessons, I went to the driving range and used the 7 iron on a basket of balls. While I was there, an older guy drove up in his Ferrari, took his Honma clubs out, and proceeded to torture the ground around the balls. After noticing me hit consistently and effortlessly with the 7 iron, he asked how I learned to do that. I pointed to the my instructor, who was with another student, and said "Give that guy money and he'll show you." He gruffed and said "I don't need that, I can do this." For the next ten minutes, I watched him work himself into a frenzy trying to hit a ball farther than two meters from where he was standing. After a while, he packed up his clubs and drove off in his Ferrari. He had all that money and too much ego to pay for lessons.
Bottom line: If this is, or has the potential to be, a passing phase, then don't bother. However, if you see handworking wood as part of your future, then strap yourself in and enjoy the ride.
