Royal vs Kirby
Well Rob, re (Reply #221),
I used to own a Royal 2075 that I got in 1998 which I used for 14 years until I got a seller refurbished Kirby Sentria (made in 2009) off ebay in September 2012. I was quite satisfied with the performance of the Royal 2075 until I got the Sentria.
I bought the Sentria because I was always curious about the Kirby vs Royal rivalry that I was reading about here on Vacuumland and wanted to compare them myself. I always took good care of my 2025 and replaced bags, belts and brushroll when needed.
The first time I fired up the Sentria I turned on the Tech Drive and was amazed at how easy it was to push and pull across my plush medium pile carpet. It manuvered very well for a machine that was 8 lbs heavier than the 2025. After a few days of vacuuming with the Sentria, I decided to do a performanmce test of the 2 machines.
The Sentria was polished to a high brilliance and came with new cloth HEPA bag ,belt, and the new High Performance (extra stiff) brushroll already installed. The bag was less than 1/4 full, so I left it in place. The Royal had a brushroll and belt that I installed less than 6 months earlier. The bag was almost half full so I replaced it with a new bag. I also put on a new belt.
Now time to do the test. I have a light beige carpet so I decided to use coffee grounds for a good contrast. I got this idea from a post on Vacuumland. I took 1 cup of fresh coffe grounds and a spread them over a 4 foot by two foot section of my living room carpet. I took another cup of coffee grounds and spread them over another 4 foot by 2 foot section of my living room carpet. I fired up the Royal and ran it one time up and one time back. I repeated this procedure with the Kirby on the other test section of my carpet. I then got on my hands and knees and closely inspected both sections of the carpet. Both machines did an excellent job but the Royal clearly left slightly more coffee grounds on that section of carpet. So, IMHO, in this test, the Kirby Sentria won.
I tried the test of tricking the Sentria to being in high speed mode with the nozzle on. I turned the Sentri on and lowered the nozzle to the height that I usually use to vacuum my carpet. The suction was so great that I could hardly push the machine with the tech drive turned off. With the Tech Drive turned on, It was almost the same effort needed to push when the motor is at normal speed, but at high speed I could hear the gears straining with a very noticeable whining noise.
I did some research and discovered that the two speed motor in the Kirby G series spins at 13,000 RPM at normal speed which provides about the same or even greater airflow than most other "direct air" vacuum cleaners on carpet. At high speed the motor spins at about 16,800 RPM. This is only used for that extra suction needed when using the hose. FYI there is a youtube video where the Baird Airflow Indicator was used on a Royal Everlast. When connected to the hose, and on a scale of 0 to 10, it reads around a 4 or 5 on the meter. I own a Baird meter and when I connect it to the hose of my Sentria it reads a 7.5. When connected directly to the fan opening, it reads a 10 which is basically pegging the meter.
If you care to know how the new Kirby Amodel fan was designed, check the link below.
By the way, I now own 5 Kirbys and I gave my Royal 2075 to a friend who needed a good upright vacuum.
Sorry this post is so long.
[this post was last edited: 2/8/2015-18:37]
http://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff1997/ch9.html
Heavy bulky noisy not the best filtration despite what they say but they do clean well and they are very reliable though.
