Sette Series

DF54 owner here. 9/10, would recommend. I owned a Baratza Encore in my pre-espresso days, and was always annoyed by the mess. Lots of fines too, as I recall. When I lived in Australia and got my first espresso machine, I had a couple Sunbeam Cafe series grinders, which were okay, but the burr assemblies were plastic and if a tab broke off you had to find replacements on eBay. These were like $99-129 AUD new, and I’d got them used for $20, so not top of the line. I upgraded to a Baratza Sette and it was a huge improvement in quality, but it was a pain to clean and it had a lot of fines build-up in just a week. I moved back to America and got my DF54 just over a year ago. It’s been great for espresso, pour overs, aeropress, and batch brews. I’ve opened it up a couple of times to clean the burrs/grinding chamber and there was hardly anything there to clean. The static in the chute is a bit annoying, but you just have to keep it cleaned using the brush provided with the grinder. And the bellows don’t attach snugly to the top so I sometimes knock it off just by brushing it, which is annoying. But even with those complaints, the DF54 has still been the best grinder experience I’ve ever had.

Ooh, hard to say. Too many other things changed (location, coffee machine, coffee beans, water...) for me to compare. I really enjoyed my Sette + Sylvia setup, and it was the best equipment I'd had at that point. But I like having a couple different beans on hand, including a bag of decaf, and the DF54 makes it possible for me to switch beans or brew methods without resetting my whole grinder. When I had the Sette, that was a more involved process and I always had grounds retention that I had to purge, which meant coffee wasted. So I only ever had one kind of coffee on hand, and I would only switch when I finished a bag. I know it's a luxury, but being able to enjoy some variety day-to-day makes coffee more fun for me.