Vanaheim KB64 Professional 1450W 28000RPM 9 Pre-Programmed Setting Countertop Self Cleaning Crushing Blenders for Ice, Frozen Fruit, Shakes and Smoothies, 64 Ounce, Black

Summary: Buy this one! It is better than the Vitamix (I did a side-by-side comparison) for a very reasonable price.The two top performing brand-names for this appliance (namely Vitamix and Blendtec) are way too expensive. The Ninja sucks in several ways (I bought a Ninja first. It can not make smooth and creamy smoothies if you run it for 10 minutes. The blades block the volume inside the mixing container preventing you from easily filling it up with say spinach. And the Ninja blades are very sharp, very large and dangerous. If you read the reviews, quite a few people end up in the ER needing stitches because of those huge blades. But worst part is the Ninja does not create a proper vortex insuring that everything inside the blender container will be hit by the blender blades. In comparison to this unit, the Ninja is a total waste of time and money). On the other hand, the Vanaheim performs better than a Vitamix with several additional features, for a great and reasonable price. You won't regret buying it.Don't let the $85 price tag fool you. This one kicks Vitamix's ass! It is like buying a Lamborghini for the price of a Lexus.Bear in mind that the manufacturing cost for both the Vanaheim and the Vitamix is less than $50. Being an engineer, I knew and understood this. So I had a very hard time spending $350 up to $550 + Tax on a top brand professional blender (edit: I am adding this later. My GF was pushing me to buy a Vitamix telling me that it is the only blender in the universe that works well. I being an engineer knew for sure that others make great blenders as well). The Ninja was the easy to find alternative. I bought one, but it was a massive failure (Every time we used the Ninja together, the GF telling me "I told you so" caused a nice bruise on my fragile ego. I am not just an average techie, I am a technical snob. At the end I had to admit that I totally faiked. But I maintained that it is possible to buy a fantastic blender for under $100. The Ninja was good for nothing. It does not even make a good door stop.). The one benefit of that experience was that it helped me learn a lot about what makes a great blenders. (You need a very powerful motor which is very high speed. Both power and speed are required. Most blenders in the market fail there. In a large blender you need both sharp blades to cut things to smaller pieces, and also thick dull blades to pulverise the smaller pieces. The Nutribullet (I have one of those as well and like it for quick single serving blends) works great because it has dull blades. But its motor can only handle small cups. The blendtech also has large and dull blades. I am guessing it too can work reasonable well as it too has a high speed motor which is also powerful. The Ninja has the power, but fails because it only has thin and very sharp blades. Furthermore, the vortex of liquids inside the blender is of outmost importance. That is what takes everything back to the blades. The Vitamix gets all of this right. But there is one more major factor which I learned about inly after I bought the Vanaheim. The Vanaheim has an intelligent speed control. The speed goes to Max, pushing everything upward, then it slows down which helps the gravity pull everything towards the blades. Then it speeds up again. This creates and up and down motion inside the blender container that helps move all the thick liquid stuck around the top towards the blades. The Vanaheim does this better than the Vitamix. I could do a similar thing manually with the vitamix by flipping it's soeed button back and forth from high to low. But then I would be doing all the work. Being a techie who likes numbs and controls, I love that the Vanaheim has 3 seperate ways of controlling it. I use all 3 methods. And that is what makes it better than the Vitamix I compared this with.It is very clear to me that Vanaheim literally reverse-engineered a top-of-the-line Vitamix. They even copied many of the specific design elements of the vitamix, including elements that do not affect the quality of the product (e.g. design elements and curves, etc...). I literally put the Vanaheim next to my girlfriends Vitamix and did a side by side comparison by making smoothies and by blending tap water in both of them at the sane time. The Vitamix is a great blender, but the Vanaheim is even better. And that is regardless of the price.After reverse-engineering a Vitamix, Vanaheim added some improvements to their blender. Basically they made a Fantastic blender which performs better than the top/most-popular brand and they are selling it for a fantastic price. (less than 1/5th or 1/3rd of Vitamix and Blendtec who are also great brands). It is a no-brainer. Buy this one. It won't let you down.Here is a list of features that makes the Vanaheim better than the Vitamix in my side by side comparison:First off: The smoothies are made just as smooth, creamy, and frothy (very high-speed adds air to the blended liquid) in the Vanaheim as it is in the Vitamix, that is exceptionally important. Most other blender can not produce the exact same or better results as a Vitamix. The Ninja which I had before I bought this Vanaheim can not make a very smooth smoothie even if you run it for 10 minutes. That is the most important thing and Vanaheim gets it right.Literally, every great feature that the Vitamix has the Vanaheim has as well (that is why I say they reverse engineered it). But they added some features to the Vanaheim that the Vitamix does not have. Here is a list of those: 1- They added 4 extra duller blades to the blender blade which helps pulverize the material inside the blender. Vitamix has 4 cutting blades, and Vanaheim has those identical blades plus 4 extra duller blades. 2 on top and 2 on the bottom. The two on top helps with creating more cyclonic action inside the blender, while the two at the bottom scoops up stuff from the bottom. They all add more blade surface which helps with efficiency.2- Vanaheim has a safety switch that prevent the blender from getting turned on if the Blender container is not set on top of the motor, The Vitamix I compared it with dod not have this safety feature.3- Vanaheim has 3 separate set of control. You can run it as A. Manually B- With simple "Low" "Med" "High" "Pulse" set of 4 buttons. And C. by several pre programmed shortcut buttons. I love to pre programmed shortcut buttons. There is an intelligent motor control built-in that makes using this blender fun and easy. Load it, turn it on, and press a button.On the other hand, the Vitamix I compares with it has only the bare essential controls and no intelligent motor controls. It has a minimalist design. One on/off button and one Fast/Slow button. That's it. You will have to operate it manually. The intelligent control of the Vanaheim gives it a major advantage over the Vanaheim in my opinion.Even when you use the Vanaheim in Manual operating mode, it has intelligent motor controls (I know I mentioned that already, but it is worth mentioning again). It steps the speed up in a few steps and keeps changing it up and down. With that the liquid inside the blender container goes up and down. Helping the blender to grab everything inside the blender container and bring it back to the blades. That really helps Vanaheim work faster and smoother than the Vitamix.4- Both are quite loud. That is expected for such high-power and high-speed appliances. But the Vitamix is louder than the Vanaheim.5- I did not specifically time the two doing the exact same blend side-by-side, but with the better blade, and the added motor controls feature which helps pull the liquid towards the blade, my impression was that the Vanaheim was slightly faster than the Vitamix (Both are quite fast actually. Definitely much faster than the Ninja which I returned).4- Did I mention it is less than 1/3 to 1/5th the price?! What would you pay so much more for an inferior product? It is a no-brainer buy the Vanaheim.P.S. a month later, and aftermaking several great smoothies together with her Vitamix next to my Vanaheim, I hand her a great shake and she finally said those sweet words I have been waiting to hear. "Congratulations, you have a fantastic blender. This is very smooth and delicious!" She said. 😀 Oh my darling, even sweeter is the fact that science and technology did not let me down this time either. 😉😁😁😁

Loved this blender until I made the most “expensive” homemade tomato soup.I made it in my instant pot and was in a rush. Didn’t let it cool down enough - but in my defense: I’m supposed to be able make soup right in the blender and that would be a get hot, so I didn’t even hesitate. Not expecting this would cause any issues.Well, long story short-It melted the drive socket- the piece on the blender base that holds the pitcher in place.Yes, the inner part is metal and won’t wear out but the metal piece is set into plastic. The rim of the socket cracked and a piece broke off and jammed between the rim and the base. Yes, the hot soup could have weakened the plastic but the piece that I found fused to the outside of the rim was broken off with clear etches. :( The heat from the friction (or the soup?) would have heated and melted the socket all around and couldn’t have caused such a break. The socket is just a bad designI work with professional Vitamin blenders at work and have replaced worn out drive sockets. They are of similar design with the center fitting made out of metal surrounded by plastic, but the plastic is more of a mate rubbery kind which can handle the strain of speed/friction heat and vibration better and not the cheap hard, shiny plastic that Vanaheim choose for one of the most vital parts of this machine.FYI- yes, I’ve owned this blender for over two years, but in that time I moved a few times and didn’t get a chance to always unpack all my small appliances. I used the blender maybe a max total of 30-40 times. So it wasn’t a matter of over use.I’ll try to reach out to the manufacturer but I doubt there will be a replacement part to purchase. They only have two blenders for sale on their website and both have been sold out for month. And there is no replacement parts section on the website nor a customer support phone number.I guess I should have spent a little more, got a vitamix and it’s seven year warranty. Expensive lesson to learn. $100 down the drain!My suggestion- stick with one of the bigger brands and spend a little more money if you want to ensure that you won’t end up with an expensive extra large paperweight shortly after the warranty expired. Or if you have only a smaller budget, check if the manufacturer of the blender you are considering has an extensive website with good customer support.

All in all I am happy with this Vanaheim KB 64 blender. It is powerful, very easy to use and not too loud. It was stable on the counter top, no moving around. The jar stayed in place, even crushing large ice cubes and was not hot after making three milkshakes. Easy to clean, although best to clean it rightaway. The jar didn't retain any odors. I like that it can be used with automatic settings or manually. It seems to be well made. The kids are thrilled I bought a "milkshake machine", I'm thrilled it magically turns into a "margherita machine" after 5 pm.It is not a Vitamix, if that is what you want go ahead and spend the extra money for one. This is a very nice blender for under $100.00.So far I have made tomato sauce, salsa, milkshakes and crushed ice for margheritas. I bought this blender primarily for making sauces and salsa and it did a beautiful job on both. I would suggest using small cubes of ice for crushed ice, the large cubes didn't break down as well as I had hoped, but breaking the large cubes into smaller cubes worked much better. I'm buying some mini ice cube trays. The milkshake recipes call for a cup of ice which made the shakes too thin. They were perfect and delicious following the directions without the ice. The blender only arrived yesterday, so I will be experimenting with the different settings for awhile. So far I'm happy with this blender, it will do what I need it to do and it was under $100.00.