CoffeeBuzz wrote: It is the BEST coffee equipment purchase I made. - once you own an M3 you put to rest grinder upgrade-itis for good. End of story.

- thats my sentiments exactly I can claim 15 months and trouble free. Beautiful machinery



...split from Versalab M3 Grinder by moderator...

I received mine in April, and outside of some popcorning (which I fixed with a cover/feed plate), it's been working perfectly!

Had mine for several years now. Works great. The Rolls-Royce of grinders!
Michael

networkcrasher wrote:I received mine in April, and outside of some popcorning (which I fixed with a cover/feed plate), it's been working perfectly!

Are you SURE that you don't need to clean off some counter space and sell that M3 on to another titan-less member???

Peter

Funny you should ask.....

Networkcrasher, can you give some details about your homemade "popcorn" cover? - Dennis

I was very much torn between an M3 and a nino earlier this spring. While I believe the M3 would have suited me better in terms of usability (I have to load 2 shots of beans into the nino - one to grind and one in the throat to prevent popcorning) I do not regret purchasing the nino. The output pattern may be prettier on the M3, but I have never seen any clumping or anything but perfect, centered, pours. One shot exactly will remain in the grind path - just on, or in the burrs. So I have to think one shot ahead when loading my beans. I don't do decaf, but I don't need to/wouldn't want to. I'm sure the grind quality must be identical. I would have gone with the M3, except the company flat out scared me, there seem to be random durability issues, and - the final straw - there were QC issues with brand new machines showing up screwed up.

If I could have gotten an M3 from another company, with a 5 year warranty, and only after inspecting the product, I would have gone with it. As it stands, I have a grinder with minor home-usability issues (but equivalent grind quality), a commercial resale market, and the elektra/1st line name behind it. I got the 35% off model, which i definitely feel was the way to go. If you have a perfectly functioning M3 at home, am I jealous? Maybe a little. But i didn't want to roll the dice.

Even with the extra cost over the K10, I'd probably have gone with the Nino if they made a 120V version (or one that could easily be run on a regular circuit with a small transformer). I move around too much to worry about non-standard electrical requirements

Customer comfort level cannot be overstated, that's for sure! I think that more familiarity with the area of interest invests a higher degree of comfort to any type of purchase.

Take my bicycle purchase, for example. I've been bike commuting for 20 yrs, & I've purchased and built quite a few bikes over the years. I've also developed very specific opinions about what features belong in the product. As such, I had very few reservations about buying a craftsman-created product (a hand-made frame & fork) using non-mainstream design & materials (randonneur features, silver-brazed, lugged, steel tubing) to provide the precisely-tuned results I couldn't get from a production vendor. Other folks will spend more money buying from a production bike maker simply because they're more comfortable with a mainstream product.

It's no different with houses, cars, furniture or fly rods. Or espresso eqpt. There are unknowns when dealing with any craftsman builder. But there are also advantages that you'll never experience with production-made items.

I view Versalab the same way. Do you want the gentlest & most direct path from burr to basket? Then you'll have a lot more comfort with Versalab's design if you learn what it takes to get there, & understand why production vendors don't want to invest in the tooling to create it. The resultant M3 design is definitely not mainstream, but the advantages of dual burrsets & not cramming every grind thru a 1/2" hole is phenomenal in the flavors created in the cup. You won't get "a 5 year warranty," but they will personally support your grinder for as long as you own it!

It's kinda overkill for the home user (not that that means anything to folks here ), but here's a view of Versalab's optimum operating setup. When you combine the grinder, hoppers & press, you can see how they're really designing for the commercial environment. They even 'splain some of the M3's advantages on their In the Coffee Shop web page. Surprisingly, most cafe owners (that I've talked with) haven't thought about any of these things!

Using one in a cafe environment would be basically impossible unless the volume was VERY low.