Waring Commercial Xtreme Hi-Power Blender, 2 Litre, 2200 Watt

This blender is a serious machine, gets on with the job, no nonsense. Its made for work and mercilessly massacres anything in its path.You press the pulse switch once and it blitz whatever is in there before you know what's happening. I am reviewing in the context of having used a few other blenders and comparing the relative performance.I use the Vitamix TNC. I think the waring is better, there's just no messing about. No chopping the food toblade sized portions, no pushing down with a tamper under normal circumstances, no nothing. No messing about with variable speed dials , or programming. Its designed to just get on with the job, fast. It looks like it's built to last, although the commercial warranty is 1year. Built for 75 drinks a day. Used domestically( as I was doing) , it would probably outlive.I liked the wide jug; the vitamix( and many other high powered blenders trying to copy vitamix) has a jug which tapers at the bottom. Thewaring jug only slightly tapers and is slightly shorter than the vitamin standard jug so it appears wide (though not as wide as thevitamix professional 750/ 300 series jugs).The top part of the motor has a ' membrane pad' covering it ,which is like a flexible and textured thick silicone square and which the jugsits on. I expect it is for shock absorption and maybe to provide a seal to protect the metal and coupling underneath it. This membraneis not 'glued on', but is secure in operation and can also be replaced as necessary.It has 2 speeds, high and low, via a flick switch. It also has a pulse switch.It has a heavy base, and feels sturdy and doesn't jump around.It has metal to metal coupling ( base of jug also has a metal contact).The jug has a useful line where it says to fill up to for washing the jug(about just less than halfway volumeof the jug),. Washing is via running the blender at high speed with soap and water for self clean. There are also instructions on sanitisingthe jug.The jug has a flexible ( looks like silicone) lid, which is easy to push in place and pull off again and was secure in operation. It is not rigid like vitamix, which needs to be 'clipped' in place.It has four large blades that look blunt but don't be fooled. They are mean. They are not serrated either.Cons1. The surface of the four 'feet' of the blender are made of a textured silicone- type material, so not a smooth easy wipe( The other parts of the base are easy wipe surfaces) .2. The motor will run even without the jug3. It is unable to process food without liquid,eg I put in whole (and half ) fruit and veg. like apples and carrots, pulsed and blended till thecows came home , stopped proceedings and shook the contents but to no avail. It just stubbornly continued playing 'ball' with the food,with the blades spinning round and round and the occupants jumping around, seemingly trying to avoid the blades (which inflicted profound lacerations and gashes to the ingredients at every opportunity).The addition of water soon put the unfortunate occupants out of their misery and the blender happily blitz them to oblivion in notime. Fair enough, most blenders ( maybe all?, including vitamix ) won't blend without liquid or chopping down first. But I just thought, big boy here might just have more stamina than most!Incidentally, I tried blending a small pear submerged in water in the vitamix and got nowhere, it just would not blend or even chop it, even at high speed for over a minute. . It looked like a pear sloshing about in a washing machine and it appeared the vitamin had lost it's usual decorum! The pear came out intact, with just huge laceration on one part.4. I think It needs a tamper for some tasks, eg nut butters. It ground about two thirds of a jugful of nuts completely with a flick or two of the pulse button. Then I switched to the blending mode, first on low and then on high power . It performed like all other blenders in this respect, shoving the nut mixture to the four corners of the world whilst the blades whizzed round and round. I had to stop and scrape the mixture back into the blades, but the mixture kept getting shoved back to the sides of the jug. So I used theunfortunate Vitamix tamper and heyho! blended tamper we got! The tamper, which was too long for the jug, had accidentally touched the blades whilst I was very diligently trying to guide mixture inwards. The vicious beast blitz off the whole of the bottom part of the tamper without ceremony, sound nor regret , and did not even bother to slow down. It just kept going like a psychopath. I only knew this had occurred when I saw strange black pieces in the mix before abruptly halting proceedings and going into mourning for the tamper and my the other hole in my pocket.( Nb: I think this blender would have made the butter in a couple of minutes or so with a dedicated tamper).5. I think this blender either has more important commercial issues to deal with than the business ofplaying around with making nut butters , ice cream and foods of a delicate constitution OR , the lack of atamper was an oversight by Waring.6. It is very noisy, and makes a frighteningly convincing 'mum, mum, mum, mum..,' sort of sound ( It talks! )7. It has a tendancy to slosh and spatter everything everywhere like a bored child having a tantrum; around the jug, inside the lid and the whole kitchen, given a chance. Vitamix , in comparison, performs a rather clean blend, and does not tend to splatter and slosh all over the place , even when filled to capacity.8. Described as 2200Watt (30000rpm) on Amazon , but the underneath of the motor states it is1500watts!Whatever the wattage, it is very good performance. There is an American version, MX 1500 that is2600watts, 45000rpm( unimaginable what that would do! ) but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available in the UK, although there is an MX1500 in Uk, it is lower powered and runs at 30000rpm (like the rest of the xtreme series).9. There is no recipe book or indulgent instruction booklet, as it's for the commercial market. The instruction manual is bare minimum.All, in all, I really like this blender, and quite forgot about the vitamix. I think it blended just as well as theVitamix but appears to get the job done quicker as there's less messing about with food preparation beforehand and no tampering.Rather ugly, but ' looks aren't everything'.I have given this waring blender 4stars because :1. It's inability to deal with basic whole fruit and veg without water( not even able to rough chop these ) ,given the price although I appreciate other blenders also struggle.2. Lack of a tamper to enable some tasks such as nut butters, icecream, which it is quite capable of doing3.Lack of a feature to stop the motor running without the jug in place, which can potentially cause damage to the jug or be a safety issueConclusionIts a fantastic blender( and so it should be, for the price and indication.). However, there are other Waring extreme blender models maybe also worth checking out before splashing out . These additionally have automated and programmable features, sound enclosures , etc, increasing the cost. It may be cheaper to buy from independent catering suppliers, who charge different prices/offers.And for those looking beyond Vitamix.... has the competition truly landed in the form of the waring extreme series? like for like unbiased comparison tests and reviews should be undertaken between these type of blenders.

A beast of a blender. American, powerful, crude and capable of dealing with anything. So robust - a lifetime purchase. I dropped the brass steamer arm of my Pavoni espresso coffee maker in the blender by mistake - it promptly chopped the brass tube in half. A serious machine.