I have no experience with macap grinders, but everything i read seems good - so am i crazy or is this deal too good to be true?

http://www.espressodealer.com/cat...hp?products_id=170

There seems to be precious little info on the M7 (as opposed to the M7K) on the forums, but the specs (75mm burrs, 1400rpm) seem to put it between a SJ and a Major.

I've been tossing up between a mine-E or a SJ - but is there any reason i shouldn't just get one (hell, get two!) of these instead?

It isn't a stepless grinder, IIRC.

True, not stepless. But can be easily mod'd if my brief forum-browsing is accurate.

shadowfax wrote:It isn't a stepless grinder, IIRC.

Good catch! That's listed as an option in the spec sheet. Other than that, this looks like a great price on a large flat burr grinder.

They must have quite a bit of these as they were selling some equipment on eBay last year including this grinder at a good price (can't remember their asking price but it wasn't more than this) but there were no takers. I made an offer via email and they offered one to me for $400. but I had just purchased a different grinder so I didn't get back to them. I'm still kicking myself.

Small quibble, but the specs for this M7 seem to differ from the M7 offered by Chris Coffee. Still seems like a steal, though.

I just took one. No more silver M7 manuals though. Only black. I got a followup email and a tracking notice within an hour. If it's too good to be true I'll know pretty soon.

The M7 offered on Amazon on behalf of WLL is NOT a M7. I ordered one and got a call from WLL saying that Amazon has mislisted their item - supposedly Amazon is consolidating its product database and makes some egregious mistakes, I guess to someone not familiar to espresso there's probably not much difference b/w a M7 and an M4.

I still don't think I understand the product line but it seems there are M7 flats and M7 conicals. And to make it worse there's a flat burr 800W M7 and a flat burr 500W M7 (same burr size). The wattage distinction seems to be the most common point of confusion. The $600 M7's you find are generally the 500W motors. The espressodealer.com overstock listed here is for the 800 watt version.

At least I think that's what I can determine.

And Chriscoffee does sell a stepless kit for it, but you have to call them. Can't just order it via their web forms. Not sure why.