Why You Can Trust CNET Omega OM7560 Blender review: Fancy blender should get stuff smoother
The Omega OM7560 blender costs too much and doesn't blend as smoothly as it should.
Omega makes the best cold press juicer I've ever laid my hands on, so I expected similar results from the company's pricey flagship blender, the $480 Omega OM7560. Despite a robust 3-horsepower motor, however, the OM7560 stumbles when you use it to blend basic items like ice and dry nuts. A blender this expensive should be able to tackle it all.
Omega OM7560 Blender
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
The Omega's barebones controls and lack of extras were also disappointing. Unlike other similarly priced blenders, the Omega doesn't have any special blending modes or ingredient presets. Neither does Omega include a glossy cookbook, a staple of blenders at this end of the market.
If you're in the market for a high-end blender, you're better off with either the $455 Blendtec Designer Series Wildside (now available for $300) or $529 Vitamix 7500 (now on sale for $480). Both smoothly blend anything you throw at them. The Blendtec has plenty of automatic functions to address a variety of foods or drinks you want to blend. And if you need some inspiration, you'll enjoy the slickly photographed cookbook Vitamix includes with the 7500.
Tall, not monster-sized
The 11.7-pound Omega is long and relatively slender, similar in size to the Vitamix 7500 and Blendtec Designer Series. Unfortunately, that makes it quite tall, enough that the blender may not fit underneath low kitchen cabinets. As a result, the appliance will eat up counter space unless you stash it somewhere out of sight.
Controls on this blender are sparse. The panel has just four buttons. The first three switch the motor on, off or fire in short bursts. The fourth key activates what Omega calls Infinity Control, the blender's only automatic preset. It's not targeted at a specific food or task. It merely oscillates the blade speed from slow to fast repeatedly.
The Omega also has two knobs on its base to adjust motor runtime and speed. The 64-ounce (1.9-liter) blender jar is relatively large. It's the same capacity offered by the Vitamix 7500. The 87-ounce container on KitchenAid's Pro Line Series tops both. Omega includes a tamping wand in the box as well. Other than a basic manual, that's it -- no glossy recipe book with fancy color photos. By contrast, KitchenAid and Vitamix blenders come standard with this sort of snazzy documentation.
Blends like a budget machine
On paper, the Omega should blend almost any food item without skipping a beat. The blender's muscular electric motor is rated at 3 peak horsepower. It's more than the Vitamix 7500 (2.2 horsepower) and equal to the $454 Blendtec Designer Series. Both of those blenders tackled all our tests easily.
Not so with the Omega. In many cases, the machine struggled to pulverize items that have only been problematic for inexpensive blenders like the $130 Braun PureMix JB7130BK. I often couldn't improve the situation, even when I used the tamping tool.
Many ice cubes were left unscathed no matter how many pulses I made with the Omega blender.
Ice
To see how the Omega handled a key ingredient, I dropped 2 pounds of supermarket ice into its plastic jar. After nine pulses, the blender transformed 75 percent of the ice into powder. But a few large ice chunks remained unscathed at the center of the jar. No matter how long I kept pulsing, the blender could not process the remaining pieces. A good machine can zip through the same amount of ice in 10 pulses or fewer. Even the Braun PureMix, a blender that had its own performance struggles, eventually transformed the same amount of ice into fine powder in 15 pulses.
Making smooth smoothies wasn't a problem.
Smoothies
The Omega performed much better as a smoothie maker. The blender rendered our test mixture of frozen strawberries and orange juice completely smooth in nine blade pulses. In fact, it almost hit the right consistency after seven pulses. We give passing grades to any blender able to complete the task in 10 pulses or less.
By comparison, both the Vitamix 7500 and Blendtec Designer Series Wildside cruised easily through our smoothie test. We had to give a helping hand to the KitchenAid Pro Line Series, but it eventually managed to pull through. The Braun PureMix failed the challenge even after 15 blade pulses.
The leafy greens in our pesto recipe can be challenging for some blenders.
Pesto
Leafy greens like spinach, parsley and kale can bog down poor-performing blenders. For example, the entry-level Braun PureMix never made it past our spinach-based pesto recipe. The Omega OM7560 had trouble too.
I could make a proper pesto, but only after using the included tamper tool.
It couldn't create a properly blended pesto in the 15 pulses or less we like to see. It got there in the long run, but I had to periodically push spinach leaves down further into the jar. I had the same experience with the KitchenAid Pro Line Series. The Vitamix 7500, Vitamix Ascent 3500 and Blendtec Designer Series Wildside all passed our pesto trial without any special assistance.
Making whipped cream was a simple affair.
Whipped cream
Turning heavy cream into a fluffy dessert topping wasn't difficult with the Omega. The blender successfully accomplished the task after nine blade pulses at high speed. A capable blender does the job in 10 to 15 pulses.
The Omega crushed dry almonds in power without any trouble.
Almond butter
Churning dry raw almonds into a creamy and spreadable paste is our toughest blender challenge. Making almond butter is not this blender's forte. First, the Omega crushed almonds into nut flour in 10 pulses. That's relatively few compared with the 30 pulses the KitchenAid Pro Line Series required. The budget Braun PureMix completed the task in 12 pulses, though its texture was very inconsistent.
I was able to make real nut butter but not after an hour of blending and pausing to stir by hand often.
But to create nut butter, I had to push the appliance to the limit. It took an hour of blending (along with healthy doses of manually mixing) to make almond butter. The blender's temperature sensor wasn't too happy, either: Toward the end of the hour, it shut down the blender's motor multiple times until it had time to cool. There's no special light or indicator to warn you of an overheat either. The blender simply quits.
The Blendtec Wildside, KitchenAid Pro Line Series and Vitamix 7500 completed this grueling challenge in under 8 minutes.
Blending a big block of cheddar is a tough test for any blender.
Cheese
One torture test we inflict upon blenders involves letting them do their worst to an 8-ounce block of cold cheddar cheese. It's not as physically demanding as our nut butter trial. And sure, it's unlikely that regular blender owners would do this. Still, not many machines achieve acceptable results. For instance the Braun PureMix couldn't properly wrap its blades around our cheddar block. They spun freely while most of the cheese remained intact.
The Omega managed to shred our test cheese block.
Surprisingly the Omega successfully shredded its sample block of cheese. It did take some outside help. I needed to give the blender jar a couple of shakes so the blades could grab hold and finish the job.
I had to add a little more water than usual but the blender did produce smooth pancake batter.
Pancake batter
The Omega managed to mix a smooth batter. Still, I had to deviate from the recommended recipe (on a supermarket mix) and add slightly more water. If I didn't, or if I ran the blender too fast, the mixture thickened and almost became dough.
The clean-up
Unlike many other models from KitchenAid, Vitamix and Blendtec, the Omega doesn't have a special cleaning mode. Even so, the Omega machine is easy to clean and wash by hand. That's especially true if you first run it with some warm water and a few drops of dish detergent in the jar. Be advised that the blender's jar (including its blade assembly) is not dishwasher safe.
Skip this blender for something better
At nearly $500, the Omega's flaws are hard to forgive. It lacks the capabilities and features of other premium blenders. If you're going to spend this much, choose something else. I suggest either the $300 Blendtec Designer Series Wildside or $480 Vitamix 7500.
Both appliances can blend up a storm, especially when you compare it to the Omega. Blendtec's Designer Series comes with loads of preset functions that will let you whip up smoothies, frozen drinks and other items with a single button press. We don't know how long this price will last, but $300 seems like a steal. The Vitamix 7500's combination of performance and alluring recipe book are compelling, especially when discounted to $480.