Cookie,
With all due respect, I am not sure I follow the logic of that comparison. All I took away from it was a side by side look at the physical specifications pulled from the respective websites. It is like saying a city bus is better than a BMW 335 because a bus has more tires, seats more people and can have an infinite number of billboards to adorn the side so the "paint" choices are endless.

IMO, a better comparison would be to provide more relevant factors to the consumer other than speeds and feeds. As a consumer, finding the burner count and BTU specs is the easy part. Demonstrate the quality of craftsmanship, flame concentration, heat efficiency, even heat dissipation in the oven and customer service, THEN you are providing a comparison that potential customer will find of value.

Eurostoves has a pretty good comparison they put on their website that does just that.

The goal of the blog is not to tell you what to buy. It is to allow you to have the information to effect an informed dececion

With all due respect to Eurostoves, we actually fix the product with 17 techs on the road. We understand craftsmanship, because we have to rectify issues

Steve

With 17 techs on the road that shows what crap most manufacturers produce these days, I would assume for each tech you would need your men to do 4 service calls per day each at least. That would be 17,680 (no deduction for holidays) service calls per year from one Large very well established company in Boston..... amazing.

BTW.... with zero techs on the road, we have never had a customer in any state in the US who did not receive service as required, you don't need techs on the road to understand craftsmanship.

Hey Steve, did it ever occur to you to put a pan on one of those stoves and see what happens?

Specs are specs. Performance and durability are more important.

You can make all the political judgments about stoves you want but that doesn't stack up to a better or more useful resource than Anthony's appliance forum.

Until you folks who want to create appliance opinions start hooking up with people who actually know what's important to an end user -- how the stove actually cooks -- it's just more useless manufacturer's mashup.

Tevor's videos address the end-user issues. Anyone who wants to actually provide a real consumer service in this regard needs to turn the stoves on.

Trev, guys average 8 calls per day so multiply that out. You sell the same "crap" as I. We respect your store, Trevor, but how can you sell a product, provide no repair support and talk about craftmanship?

Rococgurl, we have videos as well as well as visiting chefs and 9 live kitchens, so yes we use our stuff.
I dont make any judgements in the five years we have been blogging. There are many ways to create a kitchen, and many of them right

Maybe I'm missing something but when I think craftsmanship and ranges I think something like a LaCornue.

Tech support= Costumer Service

Now when one is talking F&F one could call that craftsmanship, door handle doesn't fall off, oven racks glide, burners fit, quality of the SS maybe that too. As someone who has almost disassembled my range twice and could probably take it all the way down if I so desired, I do consider it very well built. It also performs as advertised.

If I ever need tech support I will then form an opinion on how well the CS is.

Steve,
Tech specs and color choices aside, which would you advise is the better stove? Which gets more service calls? Which has service calls or parts replacements rectified more quickly? What sort of feed back have you received from your customers? Have you run them through their courses to gather empirical information to help the consumer on a level other than burner count, slight BTU delta's and the aesthetics of the knobs?

For the record I do understand what you trying to accomplish with your bake off. However, to show real value add in a head to head you do need to stand down from the fence and demonstrate "in the field" benefits and one of them will stand above the other.

Again, I hark back to a car analogy, I'm a car guy too :-). If you read a review on a BMW 335i stacked up against a Buick Roadmaster (I get that is not period correct, but hear me out) you will see where I come from in my skepticism of your head to head. The Buick has a 5.7L engine vs. 3.0L in the 335i, point Buick. The Buick had a faux wood-paneling option vs just the monotone color of the 335i, point Buick. The Buick has more cargo capacity that a 335i, point Buick. The Buick has four doors, as does the BMW, draw. Looking at 0-60 times, the BMW takes a point. Interior quality, beige 3M cotton and plastic in the Buick, Premium leathers and real wood, point BMW. No discussion of customer satisfaction, number of times the cars are taken to the shop for repair, cost of repairs, road acoustics, fuel efficiency, crash test safety....etc.

This test shows that it is a draw. A BMW 335i is equivalent to a Buick Roadmaster*..................anyone buy this?

*Buick is no longer in business.

I like them both. If you read our blog, our job is to inform not to sell. For years, we have sent a chef(yes a real chef) after delivery to show people how to use their product. Clients typically like both, because they are much better than their old products.

That being said, we service more Wolf than Viking (about 30% mor)e. We sell more Wolf, which narrows the gap, and we also fix products from other stores without service department...Thus, it is fairly even

I hate car analogies, but I drive an Audi, but does that make a BMW bad?

Steve,
I did read your blog and understand that your intent is to inform...and an informed client is a purchasing client. Karma does not pay the bills, employees and debts.

I'm glad you stand behind your partners, but still there is more to informing a client than providing them "just the facts." It seems that your blog was more of a post to put your name and two partners out there as a quick commercial.

In my other job, i.e. not writing car analogies and cooking, I "sell stuff to the government." When I do this, marketing documents and speeds and feeds are moot. Discussions are based on "what can this do for me, the customer", "how does this solve my problem," and "can you provide me with case studies and existing customers I can refer to to back this up." I get stoves are not paramount to national security, but these are considerations that need to be taken into account when making an educated and informed decision. The store, seller, car salesman, whomever, needs to be the trusted advisor.

PS, I'm and Audi guy too, but a A4 2.0T or S4 analogy would have been a stretch. ;-)

Really...so stating the facts is not paramount? Then what is? I state in the last paragraph, which has been better...only now it isn't so easy to determine for the first time in 20 years.

We have had hundreds(you read that right) of chefs that have liked both, Back to your analogy...How do you compare Audi and BMW if they have the same horsepower, features and options?

My goal is to strip away the mystique, the branding and expose this equipment for what it truly is: btus, convection, timers, etc. Consumers have the raw data to at least start a conversation with their peers, friends, etc....Thats all I am trying to do

Steve
Fact are not necessarily paramount, it depends on the audience. Simple facts to an uneducated shopper who is looking to be spoon fed on what to buy is not who I expect to be on GW.

I do not question there are hundreds of chefs that like both. I am sure there hundreds (if not more) that like Capital as well. There are volumes that like Viking and Blue Star too. But let's be honest, do they like it because it has red knobs, or puts out slightly more BTUs on the front burners than the other, or that it has more color options? Likely not. It is because is has a better heat focus and cooking consistency (repairs are probably handled by their assistant).........NOW we are getting into why one is better than the other.

I have been shopping around for a new stove for my kitchen remodel. Heavily considering a Culinarian, but still keeping my options open for a Wolf, Blue Star, or a Viking. Truth be told, the initial posted blog did not shine any new light on my decision.

.........cannot beat a Quattro in my opinion. All-wheel drive is something BMW has always struggled with. Point Audi.