When ever I see a Blendtec vs Vitamix comparission the vitamix is touted as having a superior sharpened four blade design. The tamper is suppose to be a plus as well as the manual speed control.

But if you look at the commercial Vitamix machines

[www.vitamix.com]

They actually resemble the blendtec blenders rather than their home counterparts. It looks like the newer machines have the single blade design and only the Vitaprep 3 has four blades which don't look sharpened. The carafe is larger at the base like the blendtec.

If the Vitamix home machines are better than blendtec for the reasons of the sharpened four prong blade, the tamper and the manual speed control wouldn't that also mean the Vitamix home machines are better than the Vitamix Commercial machines?

Vita-Prep 3 is a commercial machine and uses the same carafe and blades as the home model.

the real distinction is not between home and commercial machines but between manual and automatic machines.

manual machines ( no programmed operation ) use a 4 blade design and a tamper. automatic machines use a 2 blade design. this is true of both vitamix and blendtec - its just that blendtec doesn't have any manual machines.

also realize that some commercial vitamix machines look like they have manual controls ( barboss ) but are actually programmed digital machines where the knob doesn't control speed but rather switches programs.

the advantage of automatic machines is speed. at home this advantage amounts to nothing as you don't have customers waiting in line as you're blending 50 shakes back to back.

blendtec felt that it doesn't make economic sense to develop two different designs for home and commercial blenders. all blendtec are basically the same and differ only in power. vitamix on the other hand has multiple blender and container designs each customized to its own application.

it would have been cheaper for vitamix to do what blendtec does and develop only one blender and sell it under 20 different model numbers and at different price points. but vitamix is doing it the right way, and that's why it costs more.