JHCCoffee really not qualified to comment sorry. Reason is that I’ve never used the Niche for anything other than medium/light or darker. The Kony burrs are great for a strong tasting ristretto or espresso or to punch through milk but something like the Moca SD helps me pick up different flavor notes from the same bean.

    So I’ve been lucky enough to be testing the Niche duo for the last 6 months 

    More to follow

    Jake

    Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

      Looks and sounds bad. A bit of a struggle. A no from me.

      I like the sleeves on the cups jake, what are they?

      Made them myself

      Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

        An interesting post yesterday on the Decent Diaspora from the very discerning John Buckman. Sounds like he got one at the same time as you Jake (congrats by the way, that’s a helluva coup!).

        **We got ours about six months ago, and we’ve been using it daily since then.
        I’m waiting on a reply from Martin @ Niche about how much I can say, as we did have it under confidentiality.

        But, I only have positive things to say.**

        Cuprajake you are one very dark horse! Must have been hard keeping that under wraps all this time. That is amazing.

          MediumRoastSteam Just to clarify, you had asked this question a while back:

          MediumRoastSteam How many watts is the current Niche Zero’s motor?

          I looked into this, and answered that this information doesn’t seem to be available of the Niche, although it seems to be readily available for the motors in most other grinders on the market. That led to a discussion about the cut out feature of the Niche, and whether the wattage of the motor applies given that feature. The discussion expanded to general principles of spec’ing a motor for any given task, in this case an espresso grinder in general, not the new 83mm Niche in particular.

          My apologies for not being more clear. Maybe I should quote more in my replies.

                I suppose time to put my photos up.

                baby bear and his two big brothers. It’s plastic wrap on the lids, I suppose I should have removed it, bgut I like to keep things Pristine. The 3rd big brother is in the other room.

                Contact me

                  Eesh the size makes it look even worse for me.

                  So now we know it’s in the hands of forum people, is the motor the same as the Zero?

                  Not a clue as to what the motor is

                  What I can say is that it’s ground everything I’ve stuck in it,

                  Will also say that most of the Evo shot vids I’ve posted since Nov have been with the duo.

                  Would you like my thoughts in this thread or a fresh one for easier to find info?

                  Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                  This isn’t meant to sound as harsh as it will typed out I just hope we get genuinely objective reviews and not just heaped praise due to the reputation of the Niche and the relationships behind the scenes.

                  £499 is affordable for a lot of people and the Niche has been best in its class for a long time, nothing came close. However £700 (a lot more for people outside the UK) is getting into really serious money to spend on a grinder so it needs to genuinely be very very good and live up to all the claims to be worth it in my opinion.

                  Despite it looking like it does, I’m still genuinely considering it so I am keen to see reviews and opinions.

                    £800 plus shipping so it’s even more, it’s a chunk of change for sure,

                    Need to take it into context though, what does a df64 cost and then most add SSP so not sure on the value for money thing

                    Even my major stood me over £700 with SSP

                    I’d like to think I’m not bias, fwiw I took the major off the counter, as the work flow is easier,

                    Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                    My thoughts

                    Finally I can speak about the niche duo, its been hard work watching the speculation over whether niche would go flat burr

                    I was asked in November to be a tester of a new product, I had no idea what it was till I said yes, after some email exchange I get a shipping email and then a box turns up, it was a niche.

                    The box turned up just as a new niche zero would, fully packed as if it had be bought from the website, box opened and grinder unpacked, it was placed on my counter next to my other grinders:

                    The other grinders are a niche zero and a mazzer major with both stock and ssp hu burr sets

                    All way through I’ve taken notes as its good to go back, this was my initial thought upon unboxing, well boxed, good size, smaller than the mazzer, zero point looked good.

                    I spent a few days getting to grips with the grind settings, though already owning a zero the duo is second nature.  

                    Early observations, I did some initial testing,

                    Work flow both the zero and duo you add beans, close the lid and grind, with the mazzer you wdt, dose, brush then give the motor another blip to clean the grinds, this led onto the next test retention and exchange.

                    On a clean grinder, with a 20g dose going in my major gave 19.3g out, the next 3 tests with 20g in I got 19.8,20g,19.7g out, as the zero is known I didn’t test that, the duo clean took 20g in also gave out 19.3g, and the following 20g in produced 20g, 20.1g, 20g. grind times very similar between the stock major burrs and the duo, but the ssp ground in half the time.

                    After a week of dual use, I cleaned both grinders to see what was left inside. The mazzer with the ssp fitted retained 2.2g and the duo 1.2g,  

                    I did a sound test using a very simple phone app, the major 70db, zero 64db, duo 69db.

                    Then after that it was just a case of use it, I find for my use, med to med light and even filter roasts on my test grinder I have about a 5 step window for dialling in, this seems to equate to what the mazzer does also, I did some experimenting with the same bean, same dose and shot times and

                    —

                    didn’t tell the test subject (mrs) and both times she preferred the duo to the ssp burrs, this was a medium bean in milk.

                    More weeks past, and I took the ssp out of the major and added the stock mazzer burrs, which is what’s inside the duo, to give it a grinder to grinder test rather than burr to burr, the first thing I noticed was the oe burrs in the major were now out of alignment, I had shimmed the ssp, so I had to re shim and marker test the major, to get it some what parallel, the duo out the box marker tested perfect, in this time, multiple cleans between the duo and the zero saw them both hold less than 1g retention, just a note on calibration the duo comes calibrated from factory, so cleaning doesn’t affect the zero point.

                    The burrs come on their own carriers, they are designed not to be swapped out for other burrs, they are designed for mazzer burrs only,  

                    Some time round January I noticed the static really dying off and the cup on the duo becoming a lot cleaner dose for dose, this is with no wdt at all.

                    The big thing with the duo is the ability to remove the burrs and add the second set of filter burrs, visually different to the espresso burrs and also taste as well, its so quick to change, one bolt, remove both burrs, clean and install the burr of choice, no need to calibrate, just go to your setting, I found mid to early 30’s good for a v60 with an Ethiopian filter roast. I don’t drink much in the way of filter now, but there was a noticeable difference to the conical in the zero.

                    Evaluation.

                    I took the major off my counter about 2 months ago, the duo offers a smaller size, ease of use and a huge burr set, comparing the duo to the ssp it gives a more rounded balanced cup, the ssp pull to the brighter more acidic side, while adding some sweetness it can unbalance the cup, they certainly give for a worse visual shot, breaking down and looking thin, they also pass on more fines to the cup, were as the duo burrs give a very even pour, bringing out the balanced character of the bean, if its light and tea like you get that, if its richer and more body that comes through also,  

                    Its been amazing to have been asked to be part of this trial, and I’ve had a good 6months with the niche duo, ill be sad to see it go.

                    Thanks jake

                    —

                    Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                      Sorry yeah I don’t think it’s overpriced at all. I just mean it’s a lot of money for someone to spend.

                      Despite me having an obscenely priced machine, I’ve never spent more than £500 on a grinder so even for me it’s a big outlay.

                      It doesn’t seem as slow as I thought. Given the age of my SJ it’s probably only doing 18g in 10 secs and it didn’t look like the Duo is far off that.

                      And yeah I wouldn’t expect to see bias on here, looking forward to the reviews/thoughts.

                      A big bug bear people seem to have with flats is the alignment of burrs. Sounds like they have designed this very well in that regard - it would need to be if its designed for the burrs to be interchangeable otherwise the faff just wouldn’t be worth it.

                      I’ve never owned or tried a Niche - never been a fan of how it looks personally. I don’t drink pour over, so this is not something I’d buy for that feature, but I hope the product does very well. I’m sure it will.