Different "hand" for different rope brands

I recently purchased an older (but unused) Mammut 9.8 60m rope and a new Blue Water "Accelerator" 10.5 short rope (both dynamic, single ropes). The Blue Water has a noticably softer "hand" even though it is thicker. Is this pretty common?

I've had Bluewaters from long ago, and they were always a soft' rope. My first Mammut bicolor, 11mm bought in '75 was softer than they seem to be now. I have a 10.5 and it's solid.

Yep. The hand of ropes vary quite a bit. It may correlate to impact force as well. I find the low impact force ropes such as Blue Water, PMI and Beal have a great hand and are very nice to use. The stiffer ropes tend to have high impact forces and are not as user friendly, but may hold up to abrasion a bit better.

I prefer the softer ropes personally and I found since I stopped lowering people when the rope is running through gear the abrasion issue is no longer an issue. My ropes are lasting much longer now.

Agree on the lowering thing. Had a brand new rope this spring that was used on same length routes over and over,lowering on a grigri. It developed about 10 ft. of loose sheath over that grigri section,, and I can only link that to the lowering process.