Yep Diamond Nectar and KoolBloom were the first two supplements I started using. And for what we pay they are ALL expensive. $110USD +- for a gallon each of my GH Flora three part. I use them because I've always used them, going waaay back to my outdoor days. And I think it's cool they have been used on the International Space Station.
I don't like AN either, absolutely nothing to do with the nutes, believe they are a great product. But I take huge exception to the loud mouthed smart assed owner who blasted all kinds of bullshit about other vendors, most notably Gen. Hydro. Some of the shit that man said in their formative years would have started bar fights where I came from. And if there's one thing I can't stand it's a loud mouthed smartass. I'll never do business with them no matter how good his product.
Simple truth is for a handful of dollars we could make our own nutes if only we had the education and time. So I take 90% of all nutrient vendor claims with a grain of salt and keep using the product because (a) I am intimately familiar with it and (b) it has never let me down.
When I first started hydro, I ran Gen. Hydro for a couple of years with no ec/ppm or pH meter - just a drip bottle of pH reagent - and I never once had a crop fail. If pH dropped I figured the mix was too strong so I would start diluting. Sure, I got some nute burn, but I also got a 42oz yield of one crop under a single 600W HID lamp (with a little help from a spider mite infestation that stressed the piss out of my grow) and it was bad assed smoke. I had some Rastafarians in Cincinnati begging me for the stuff every couple of months.
Just for shits grins and giggles, one of these days I'm going to buy a couple of bags of Gen. Hydro's Maxi dry. You can get a 2.2 (one kilo) bag of grow and a 2.2 pound bag of bloom for $34USD total / both, not each. I have a sneaky suspicion that yield would not be that far off compared to my current twelve part expert recirculating regimen.
But then I would not get the joy of playing Mad Scientists with all my meters and syringes and other fancy grow shit!!! Some of the crap I do just because it's fun.