It's hard to imagine a better bang-for-the-buck in grinders than the Virtuoso. Easy to use and to clean; great range of grind settings; quality manufacturing, and the BEST customer service imaginable.

Haven't used a Rocky or higher priced grinder, but what could it do that this doesn't? Like most quality grinders, gets stuck on oily beans, but why would you want to grind oily beans anyway?

I bought a Solis Maestro Plus five years ago and got good mileage out of it. That model had some limitations: the grind settings sometimes slipped; the burrs weren't of the highest quality, and it required regular opening up to dislodge stuck beans. But for an entry level espresso grinder, I was reasonably satisfied.

When it had a real problem, I discovered that Baratza was just down the freeway from me, so I gave them a call. They (Kyle) said, "Sure, bring it in." Baratza is "headquartered at Kyle's home overlooking Lake Washington east of Seattle. I pretty nice spot to get your grinder checked! Kyle had a lot to do, but dropped it the moment I got there and tended to my machine like it was the most important thing in his day. I learned more from my 30 minutes in his kitchen about grinders than I had in hours on the internet. Kyle suggested I upgrade to the Virtuoso, which I did, and he gave me an unsolicited $40 trade-in on my old Maestro Plus!

When my Virtuoso had a problem recently (after a year of flawless, daily operation), back I went to Baratza. This time, Joe served me with equal attention, courtesy and helpfulness. The problem was a broken piece on the adjustment ring, the result of a stray hard bean. Joe not only replaced it at no charge, but he upgraded several internal parts to higher quality materials, all for nothing!

One of my favorite things about quality coffee are the great people who love what they do. The folks at Baratza join, for me, Tom and Maria at Sweet Maria's as folks that it's just plain fun to do business with.

As noted above, I bought this directly from Baratza, picked up at their office.