So I'm basically coming down to a choice between the Novakon Torus and the PCNC 1100 and looking for opinions. I'm looking at fairly typical high-end hobbyist prototyping and very limited commercial use. These are the points I see between them:

Work envelope: Basically the same for my purposes- the PCNC 1100 has a bit more X and a decent amount more Z, but either would be adequate for my anticipated uses.

Spindle: The Torus has full RPM range without a pulley and is a servo spindle. The constant torque and rigid tapping aspects are interesting but I don't see either of them as crucial to success.

Weight/rigidity: 1130 pounds for the 1100, 702 for the Torus. Not a small difference considering roughly comparable work envelope across two bed mills. I haven't seen a Torus in person so I don't know where the difference in weight comes from but the amount seems large enough to be possibly significant.

Accessories: Obviously an edge for Tormach here. Novakon seems to have a lot of the things I want in the works like a power drawbar but "coming soon" isn't the same as "buy now."

Support: Tormach is definitely well-established at this point. Novakon is more of a newcomer but they've been around a few years at least and they weren't easy years economically so I don't think they're fly-by-night. The risk I see is mainly that something odd happens and they disappear. I've built four benchtop machine stepper conversions from scratch so I'd probably be able to repair/replace the stuff most likely to go kaput.

Fit/Finish: The Tormach looks like a completely designed-from-scratch product where the Torus looks more like what I would build *if* I put a ton of time and part-sourcing into it. Sometimes aesthetics are a hint of overall quality and sometimes they're just skin-deep.

Price: For a machine with stand and coolant setup, the Torus comes in about $3500 less which is definitely enough to make me give it some serious consideration. Before anyone says it, I've been using TTS on my benchtop mill for a couple years so I'm pretty well set with tooling.

If anyone has had the chance to compare these machines "in the iron" so to speak I'd be especially interested to hear what you think. Tormach is obviously the leader in this space (which they largely pioneered) but on paper at least it seems like Novakon is starting to offer some real competition which can only benefit those of us buying machines!