I have been indulging my woodworking hobby for years now with a DeWalt jobsite saw and with lots of purpose-built jigs, it does an adequate job: tiny table but great pinion-geared fence.
A local supplier has the Sawstop contractors saw on for a good price and I have been pondering moving to the larger, heavier saw and from all I’ve read it is a nice, well-made tool. There are certainly some optional bits that are just not available for the little jobsite saw.
The DeWalt is a direct-drive 15 amp saw nominally rated at 2 HP. The Sawstop is belt-driven and rated at 1.75 HP. Will I really be giving up about 1/8 of the power by moving to the Sawstop? I don’t know enough about how the motors are rated or how the different drive technologies impact the cutting power to understand if I am comparing apples to apples on that hp rating.
Can anyone offer me any insights on this?