I am so tossed on this decision. I have spent enough time to have a pretty good understanding of the pros and cons of each machine.
I do not wish to discuss quality control or customer service as part of this discussion. Obviously, this is a concern but the two companies are equal enough. The only two points I am stuck on are versatility and repeatability.
One thing that is super important to me is tool versatility.
The other very important thing is cut repeatability and quality.
The Rikon is super versatile, but is finky to setup after blade swaps or height adjustments. However, having the ability to cut any material with the variable speed would be awesome. I really would love the ability to cut metals, for example, I want to make a railroad tie anvil.
The Laguna is very easy to setup after swaps and the height adjustment works flawlessly, however, I could only cut wood with this saw which leaves me needing to find another solution to cut metal.
Also, if I go with just a wood saw only, I may just abandon the Laguna all together and go with something that will give me more resaw height which is also important to me. When cutting wood that is most of what I will be doing with the band saw. I will still do rip cuts and such, but I am getting the saw really to do resaw cuts.
Any thoughts would be helpful... or just confuse me more
PS: I know there are other threads on this exact topic but I didn't want to be a grave digger and I think the DVR model is unique. The question really is variable speed saw or not and the only variable speed saw less than 3k new that I can find is the Rikon. I found a Vertrax for $1,600 that would be freaking awesome but the FPM is only 1,600 max which is too slow.