I experienced a broken gear on my Dewalt planer. Since my planer was out of warranty, I went through the hassle of replacing it myself.
Immediately after doing that, I put a set of these blades on.
What a difference! I had not realized that my old blades had become dull. They were still doing a great job, but what I didn't realize is that the planer was pulling too hard now. It was working too hard to plane the wood with dull blades.
Once I changed the blades, the planer had a completely different sound. Sometimes, the motor speed doesn't even change when the blades hit the wood... that's how much difference the blades made.
And don't worry... the blade height measuring jig that came as part of your DeWalt planer makes the entire process easy as can be.
Don't wait too long, or you may be replacing gears too!