Hello.

I was wondering if anybody has upgraded from a Specialita to the XL or Oro SD and noticed a vastly difference in their grind settings?

I guess I lucked out and both my Specialita and XL burrs touch at 0. On my Specialita, my grind setting is around 3 and my new XL is grinding at around 5.5 for the same beans.

I know the larger burrs of the XL might contribute to this somewhat but I did not think it would be that big of a change on the dial. (wasted a lot of beans figuring this out)

Has anybody else found this to be the case? Basically for me and the beans I'm using, anything below 5 completely chokes the machine.

And in case anybody was wondering, I upgraded primarily to get faster grinding. My Specialita took around 16s to grind 18g vs my new XL at around 6s. Otherwise really liked my Specialita.

Not sure if it's a valid comparison because they use different burr sets with probably somewhat different particle distribution curves..
That said,
- The Specialita's dial goes from 0 to 6 while the XL's larger dial goes from 0 to 10. 3/6 and 5.5/10 are pretty similar.
- As I understand, grinders tend to produce more fines when new (i.e. for the same flow, you need to grind finer as burrs get seasoned). So, if the XL is much newer, its grind setting being a tad coarser than the Specialita is in line with the expectation.

I'm also looking to upgrade to the XL or the Oro SD, mostly for the looks and workflow improvement. Any improvement in cup quality would be a bonus.

Wow! I feel silly not noticing that now. Thanks for the pointing that out.