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Help me decide - K10 WBC or Robur?

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  • #16
    Re: Help me decide - K10 WBC or Robur?

    Great post, Paolo. Makes me feel like running out and buying a Robur (almost ;D).

    Squozen, if a Robur is out of reach, have you considered a Kony? I think theyre a similar (smaller AND cheaper) conical burr set-up to the Robur, rather than a flat burr SJ. Check out Talk Coffees CS only page.

    Greg

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    • #17
      Re: Help me decide - K10 WBC or Robur?

      Damn you, Paolo.

      Damn you all to hell.

      Now I want the Robur again.  

      Greg, I was originally thinking of the Kony, but the Titan Grinder Project made me think, If a Kony is only a bit cheaper than a Robur, Ill always be wishing I had the Robur for the rest of my life, but I wont be able to justify the upgrade after spending $1500+ for a Kony.

      My current thinking is that I should buy an ebay Super Jolly along with a Giotto, and then buy a Robur down the track and resell the SJ. Ill lose a few hundred dollars doing so, but I end up with a great combination...

      ...the only hurdle now is convincing my girlfriend, who doesnt drink coffee. She didnt understand why I needed the turbocharged car either...

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      • #18
        Re: Help me decide - K10 WBC or Robur?

        Originally posted by Squozen link=1218366695/0#16 date=1218510624

        My current thinking is that I should buy an ebay Super Jolly along with a Giotto, and then buy a Robur down the track and resell the SJ. Ill lose a few hundred dollars doing so, but I end up with a great combination...
        Going fishing in the bay, eh? Take care, theirs been a bit of discussion on the "grey import" SJs here before. Great pricing, but with risk.

        Comment


        • #19
          Re: Help me decide - K10 WBC or Robur?

          Ive been trying to decide between the K10 and the Robur too... I prefer the look of the Robur but the price of the K10.
          And the Robur is big... That just makes it more impressive :-)

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          • #20
            Re: Help me decide - K10 WBC or Robur?

            Originally posted by GregJW link=1218366695/0#17 date=1218512461
            Originally posted by Squozen link=1218366695/0#16 date=1218510624

            My current thinking is that I should buy an ebay Super Jolly along with a Giotto, and then buy a Robur down the track and resell the SJ.  Ill lose a few hundred dollars doing so, but I end up with a great combination...
            Going fishing in the bay, eh? Take care, theirs been a bit of discussion on the "grey import" SJs here before. Great pricing, but with risk.
            Yeah, Im not a fan of ebay but Im about $300 short of being able to afford one at full retail price, and theres no point buying a new machine without a grinder.

            The other option is going back to what I was going to do originally (buy the grinder now and then wait a few months for a machine), and I dont think I can tolerate that after reading up on espresso machines of late.

            Ill see if I can find those discussions...

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            • #21
              Re: Help me decide - K10 WBC or Robur?

              Buying a good grinder first then a machine and not going near eBay for either is the best option.

              Comment


              • #22
                Re: Help me decide - K10 WBC or Robur?

                Compak have certainly put a lot of effort into marketing and have made a lot of improvements and all, but, IMHO, if you have to have the best it is still the Robur. I am constantly in awe about how easy it is to walk up to a Robur and pull relatively good shots with it with absolutely no effort and very good shots with relatively little effort. The only two negative things that I have ever heard about the Robur have been that the dosing chamber is bad and that it heats up. The first point might be true of some of the older ones, but the recent dosing chambers seem to be quite good. As far as I know, some may have a little more left shoot than others - I used one that had a slight left shoot and another that dropped perfectly straight. The dosers could probably still use the tape mod. I would make two observations about the second point. First, it only applies in a high volume situation. Second, I simply do not believe that there is a better alternative - particularly given that the new Roburs have even more inbuilt cooling stuff and that the three phase is available.

                There are a few innovations that the new Roburs have that give it a bit of an edge over the K10, particularly for home use. First, you can buy the doserless version now. I havent used it, but if it is anything like the mini E it should be pretty sweet - although I would prefer a portafilter activated version. Second, there is now an auger above the burr sets. This means that it ought to deliver a consistent grind from the top of the hopper to the bottom - great news for those of you that like to only add one shots worth of coffee at a time. MACAP have already copied this feature; its probably only a matter of time before Compak also jump on the bandwagon. Third, as mentioned above, the grinders now come with built-in fans. For home use, this really just jacks up the price without providing a real benefit.

                I think that the Robur is also basically equal or superior to the Compak in pretty much every other way. The Compak doser is supposed to be better. I suppose that it might sweep cleaner in stock state. I think that its more or less a draw in terms of how cleanly they dose. The real thing that creates mess is dosing so that the mound goes above the rim of the basket, as coffee invariably bounces or slides off it. The Robur tray is huge enough to catch everything that bounces off, or you can use the grinder without the tray and have the doser hang directly over the knock box or just brush the mess off the bench. The Compak tray is tiny and is largely obscured by the portafilter itself. The practical upshot is that if you dose up and coffee bounces off the mound, it will end up either sitting on the side of the foot of the grinder or sitting on the bench next to the foot of the grinder. You cant move the doser above your knock tube because the foot sticks out and the tray sits in the foot. The Robur doser and fork are also higher up, which makes it all a bit more ergonomic. The Compak doser might give you slightly more visibility than the Robur doser, presuming that you operate both without lids, but I believe that at least some of the Compak K10s now come with the Diamond C logo in the exact right spot to obscure your view of what is going on. Its pretty amazing ... the Robur seems to hold almost nothing in the exit chute, whereas the K10 holds a fair bit. This might be worthwhile thinking about in terms of the cost difference between the two - if you lose 20% more coffee to the throat in the K10 compared with the Robur, how long does it take until the coffee that you have to purge and throw out eats up the cost difference between the two? (I dont know.) The Roburs have a pretty solid return spring on the doser; the K10 feels a bit weaker to me. I am scared that the K10 hopper will shatter if I drop it, whereas the Robur hopper appears tougher to me. The Roburs floating collar system makes sense to me; the K10s system intuitively looks a bit more wobbly to me. I also happen to think that the Robur looks awesome, whereas the K10 looks a bit plasticky. The Roburs have a long track record of reliability, whilst the K10s have a short track record of problems coming up and being promptly fixed by Compak.

                Believe it or not, that was my genuine attempt to make a fair and unbiased comparison between the two. At best, the Compak might come out ahead in the doser, but I think that thats pushing it. All of this is not to say that the Compak is a bad grinder. I think that its pretty good, but the Robur is just plain better. The Compaks value proposition is that it is cheaper than the Robur. The real question is in working out how much more the Robur is worth to you than the K10. Frankly, I think that once youre up in this territory, youre probably reaching a point of diminishing returns. The biggest bang for your buck might be in spending some money on training with one of the barista champs or on sourcing absolutely mind-blowing coffee. That said, having a Robur on the bench is very satisfying.

                Ian, I cant say that I share your enthusiasm for the Nino ... particularly given that stepped adjustment mechanism.

                Im sure that its only a matter of time until a better grinder than the Robur comes along, but I simply dont think that were there yet, particularly with the new crop of Roburs.

                Hope that helps,

                Luca

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                • #23
                  Re: Help me decide - K10 WBC or Robur?

                  Originally posted by luca link=1218366695/20#21 date=1218637035
                  Its pretty amazing ... the Robur seems to hold almost nothing in the exit chute, whereas the K10 holds a fair bit.  This might be worthwhile thinking about in terms of the cost difference between the two - if you lose 20% more coffee to the throat in the K10 compared with the Robur, how long does it take until the coffee that you have to purge and throw out eats up the cost difference between the two?  (I dont know.)
                  If the price difference between the two is $600 and you pay $40/kg for beans then you need to waste 15kg of coffee.
                  If the K10 wastes an extra 5g? per shot then you need to make 3,000 coffees before you break even.
                  Assuming 8 coffees a day then it would take just 1 year to make the Robur worth it  

                  (Yes I know you can get coffee for less than $40/kg but then it takes longer to make the Robur pay off  : )

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                  • #24
                    Re: Help me decide - K10 WBC or Robur?

                    Well, my decision was made. Ive bought an ebay SJ (I know, I know), and Ill be buying a machine from Chris at TalkCoffee this weekend. If the SJ proves to be inadequate Ill upgrade to a Robur next year and return the SJ to the fetid pit that is ebay.

                    Thanks to all for the suggestions, and Im sure youll see more stupid posts from me in the future.

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                    • #25
                      Re: Help me decide - K10 WBC or Robur?

                      Originally posted by Squozen link=1218366695/20#23 date=1218675973
                      If the SJ proves to be inadequate Ill upgrade to a Robur next year and return the SJ to the fetid pit that is ebay.  
                      Dont forget to offer it up for sale here first "Squozen", many a CSer dreams of upgrading from their current EMO480 or similar to something more substantial... "quid pro quo" for all the helpful advice youve received,

                      Mal.

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                      • #26
                        Re: Help me decide - K10 WBC or Robur?

                        Originally posted by luca link=1218366695/20#21 date=1218637035

                        There are a few innovations that the new Roburs have that give it a bit of an edge over the K10, particularly for home use. First, you can buy the doserless version now. I havent used it, but if it is anything like the mini E it should be pretty sweet - although I would prefer a portafilter activated version. Second, there is now an auger above the burr sets. This means that it ought to deliver a consistent grind from the top of the hopper to the bottom - great news for those of you that like to only add one shots worth of coffee at a time. MACAP have already copied this feature; its probably only a matter of time before Compak also jump on the bandwagon. Third, as mentioned above, the grinders now come with built-in fans. For home use, this really just jacks up the price without providing a real benefit.
                        The auger makes no difference. When I run the robur out of coffee, the last pour is always significantly faster.

                        The Roburs have a pretty solid return spring on the doser; the K10 feels a bit weaker to me. I am scared that the K10 hopper will shatter if I drop it, whereas the Robur hopper appears tougher to me.
                        I agree about the return spring, but the hopper is quote hardy. Ive dropped mine at work heaps of times. No problems there. We have a spare compak hopper at work. Lets drop it and see what happens. Nothing, would be my guess!

                        The Roburs floating collar system makes sense to me; the K10s system intuitively looks a bit more wobbly to me. I also happen to think that the Robur looks awesome, whereas the K10 looks a bit plasticky.
                        Looks aside, the 2nd generation of K10s now have a floating collar.

                        The Roburs have a long track record of reliability, whilst the K10s have a short track record of problems coming up and being promptly fixed by Compak.
                        Do you think Mazzer got everything right on their first gen grinders? One thing you can credit Compak with over Mazzer is listening to customers. That and they have rocking customer service. phone them up in Spain and theyll bend over backwards to help you.

                        Ian, I cant say that I share your enthusiasm for the Nino ... particularly given that stepped adjustment mechanism.
                        Ross from Elektra actually left the Nino at Venez for a while and asked me to use it so I could provide some feedback.

                        1) I asked for stepless adjustment
                        2) I asked for a LM pf holder retrofit

                        Guess what. 1 month later, Ross had a brand new grinder from Elektra with those exact changes.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Re: Help me decide - K10 WBC or Robur?

                          Yeah, its really great to see when big companies listen to those on the front lines. Ross was telling me that all new Ninos will be stepless.

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                          • #28
                            Re: Help me decide - K10 WBC or Robur?

                            whats the damage on the nino?

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Re: Help me decide - K10 WBC or Robur?

                              about 3.5k? Dont quote me...plus its a really heavy bugger...oven heavier than the robur....and carrying it hurts your hands because it has rolled edges at the bottom.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Re: Help me decide - K10 WBC or Robur?

                                Can I throw a B.N.Z conical into the fray? Ive seen some good results with these also. No real experience with them though.
                                Not 100% sure its in the same category though.

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