[solidONE]

Here's an eample.

Say you have a shock with high speed adjustment. The way the high speed adjusters typically work is to add or reduce preload on the shim stack with the adjustment screw. preloaded shims are bent a tiny bit while resting. The bigger the preload/bend the more digressive the profile.

Now lets say you want to replicate damping profile of the high speed adjustable shock on a shock that does not have high speed adjustment. You can "build" the preload into the shim stack using a ring-shim to have the same digressive behavior has the high speed adjustable shock with a digressive setting. Say you want to go the opposite direction and mimic the adjustable shock while at the higher bleed or softer setting (-30 click on a 32 click shock). You can build the same amount of bleed in to the valving on the non-adjustable to achieve the same damping curve as -30 click on the adjustable.

In this sense the 3-way shock can be a digressive linear and even progressive depending on what the adjustments allow and the valving. That's why they are big ticket item. Then it come down to 'do you even need that?' Secondly, just because you got all the knobs it doesnt mean its going work the way you want it to. In other words, just because they are expensive and have all the nice CNC anodized finish and tech doesnt mean they wont suck and be way off target.

This also means that if done right, a single or even non adjustable shock has the potential be pretty impressive just without the flexibility of the fancier shock. You have one very good setting (be it digressive or just slightly digressive linear valving) vs 356 different setting you can dial on the adjustable shock which only maybe a couple of those 356 setting you will ever use. Worse yet, you can end up with a shock with 365 setting but non of which work.