This past week my Quickmill Anita started arcing. I ended up coming up with a work around to bring it back to working order, but not before ordering new parts, and then ultimately a LMLM. The LMLM won't be here for 6+ weeks.

Anyways my current setup is "fine." It's a Quickmill Anita and a Macap M4 (stepped, and with a doser). Everything is loud, I hate the doser/grind retentions/steps, and honestly in all my efforts to make better espresso I've made the whole setup completely unapproachable to my wife (the flow control mod all but ended her making her own espresso).

So now I've got all this time before the LMLM gets here and I've gone down the rabbit hole re: grinders to the point where I am basically less informed than when I started out and at this rate I'm going to convince myself that everything that isn't a MonoCon is trash without having ever laid eyes on one in person.

My thinking is I should get something completely different from my Macap and try a single doser. I only make espresso, I open a bag, dump it in the hopper, go through it in a week, repeat. I used to try multiple beans at once but it's such an absolute pain in the ass with my Macap that I gave up on it. A single dose would let me experiment more and also dial in the grind much better (due to the Macap being stepped). To that end I could keep the Macap dialed into a single bean to give my wife some consistency while I play with the single doser. If single dosing isn't for me I figure I can sell both grinders and replace them with something more traditional like a Eureka or a Mahlkonig X54 or whatever and have perfectly serviceable espresso.

At this point I feel like I've worked my way into an echo chamber. The NZ seems like the logical choice and I've pretty much convinced myself that's the way I should go. At the same time the Eureka Oro Single Dose has caught my eye but somehow there's still few reviews. Both are comparable in price and have similar lead times (unless I find a NZ 2nd hand).

I'm worried that I'm overcomplicating things and in reality I'm going to get similar performance out of either one, and even if I go with something like an X54 it'll be an improvement over what I currently have.

Based on what you have written, it sounds like you will more than likely appreciate the benefits that single dosing offers. I can't offer you any advice on the NZ as I've probably read many of the same reviews and posts about it that you have. What I can tell you is my experience using a Mignon XL set up only as a single doser. In many respects it is identical to the Oro SD.

I found the XL to be a real pain to achieve consistent results between different roasts. The adjustment knob is very small and imprecise. This became especially clear when I would switch between a decaf medium roast and a caffeinated medium roast from my favorite local roaster. These same issues were also found when I switched to roasts from another company even if they were similar medium roasts. The grinder was nice as long as I used the same roast exclusively. While the XL configured this way was a low retention grinder, I used it for three weeks and replaced it with a much higher end stepped grinder.

IMO, 1650 RPM on the Oro is a non-starter.

I still use my M4 for drip but retired it for espresso in about 2008.
I've had 3 pro grinders between the M4 and the Zero.

Of the choices,
Niche Zero.
Full Stop.

It's pretty quiet, minimal retention which is easily handled with a puffer.
See Huffin' & Puffin' a [Niche Zero] grinder

ONLY negative is it is not micro repeatable if you change coffees daily and worry about 10ths of an increment.

found the XL to be a real pain to achieve consistent results between different roasts. The adjustment knob is very small and imprecise

Strange. I consider my XL to be a very easy grinder to dial in. I am getting very consistentent results across a wide range of beans and roasts. And the adjustment knob is very sensitive. I am a big fan of the Eureka adjustement mechanism compared to collar ring based solutions. I use both my XL and Niche. The Niche wins on single dosing. But the XL has little retention as well. I use the XL in timer mod with half a hopper full of beans. Output is pretty accurate with a deviation of ~0.2 grams. The XL can be single dosed as well. Without blow up I am getting max 0.2 grams difference. Exchange will be more than Nicht but do not know how much (I have read about 0.7 grams). The Niche has the nices workflow for single dosing. Tastewise they are both pretty good. The Eureka produces more mellow tasting and better balanced shots. The Niche highlights specific tones. Sometimes interesring but not allways pleasant. For lighter roasts I prefer my XL. Of course taste is highly subjective so others may have different preferences.

I have no experience with the X54 but from what I have read it is much slower (smaller burrs) than the XL while having more retention. And that 500 grams hopper is peculiar large for home use. I do not see any advantages compared to the XL

FWIW, Kaffeemacher recently did a rather lengthy comparison of NZ, the Oro (not SD, but they are very similar), ECM S 64, and Mazzer Mini E A.

https://www.kaffeemacher.ch/blog/espres ... n-zuhause/

"Scores":


As I wrote in another thread, I take all reviews/infomercials by both "experts" and forum hobbyists with a huge grain of salt, especially when it comes to espresso grinders.