I am comfortable based on all of the glowing reviews that the Niche Zero is designed well, and delivers what it claims to.

What I am not convinced of yet is:

1. Component quality- It seems like there has been a recent change to Chinese manufacture from the original UK manufacture. Are the components (motor, gears, etc..) being being used closer to an appliance grade grinder in quality and expected durability, or closer to commercial grade? I am aware already about the Mazzer burrs so no need for discussion about those.

2. Value for money. The price point (in Australia at least) is around $1,300 which is nearly 3 x the cost of the Sette; is it built with components that justify that kind of price?

I would love to see some serious objective answers and not fanboy answers. I'm interested in one for my office setup (if I get over it's looks...) but have the same questions.

Simon345 wrote:nearly 3 x the cost of the Sette; is it built with components that justify that kind of price?

Its off topic but I had Precisio and IT was not worth money I paid for IT. To much plastic for espresso aspirating grinder. Broke burr Holder and adjustment parts only by using light rosted beans. Similar build quality grinders are worth 1/3 of its price. Heard that Sette is also using plastic parts for burrs mounting. So I'm not sure if you should use Sette as build quality benchmark.

I suspect there's not much more that anyone can say about the component quality other than the current observations. The only way to know for sure is to wait for 5-10 years of actual user experience before deciding, or take the leap now and be mentally prepared it may fail in a few years (but that day may never come). I chose the latter.

Fact 1 - The Niche isn't overbuilt like the commercial grinders such as Mazzer, Compak, Caedo, Monolith, Helor etc.

From what I can see, the upper burr carrier is made of plastic, and so is the gear box (external). On the plus side, they can be replaced rather cheaply. A hallmark of good engineering is that the design/spec meets and covers the requirement of usage (not everything has to be overbuilt X times over), which to me it seems to be the case.

Fact 2 - There is no major failure after hundreds/thousand of units delivered.

To me, this is a very good sign if you compare to other newly launched products. No comment about the move of manufacturing location. I hope it's just the location being changed, and not the components themselves. They have a potential winner right there and I wouldn't change the recipe if I were them...

On value of money front, as Australian we do tend to pay more for everything (retailer margin and currency exchange rate). If you look at the single-dosing alternatives, HG1 will be about 1.7k landed (in no way a good value of money), Monolith Conical just above 3k landed. The Sette is cheaper, but I would rate the Niche as being more robust in comparison (as we have not seen any commonly occurring failure for the Niche). So the price point of Niche really did fill up a niche between the two extreme ends.