Any owners of the SAI Bloc that can share feedback? I'm considering one but read some negative feedback regarding QA. And for $90 I want to make sure I'm not throwing away money.

https://stanthonyind.com/products/bloc

I have one in maple. I use it every day and I love it.

I can't imagine what the quality issue is. It's a great big solid block of maple. For tamping, it works well with a bottomless portafilter but poorly with a spouted portafilter. But that's a Bezzera spouted pf; maybe with other brands it's different. For tamping, it holds half the portafilter, so if you press the wrong way, you can bend it. But that's kind of obvious, I think.

I also bought their distribution tool, which is beautifully built and matches the station. But I went with a traditional tamper instead of a palm tamper. I don't think palm tampers work as well. I don't use it as a knock box. I don't think it's intended as a knock box and it wouldn't work well as a knock box.

If you want, I'll take closeups with the spouted and bottomless portafilters, so you can see what I mean. But your spouted PF might fit well.

Thanks for your comments! I really like the all in one yet not too big aspects of this product. I would be using it to knock out pucks so that's disappointing to hear you're not recommending this. I only have bottomless pf's so that won't be an issue for me.

it's beautiful. great product by St Anthony

I really like this station from St Anthony, but there isn't too much room for knocking out pucks so that's why I've steered away. Instead I use the Decent Knockbox and the Decent tamping station. I love how big the knockbox is and the tamping station has storage for a couple dosing funnels as well. I use the La Marzocco tamping mat in front of the Decent tamping station and my PF sits nice and level. It's nice not to have to hold my PF for tamping.