For years I have often wondered if Vita-Mix machines could actually be as wonderful as they are advertised. So do you have one? What is your experience?
Yes, we (my mother when I still lived with her) had one. We all thought it was rather expensive for what is essentially a blender, and my mother is the type of impulse shopper who buys this kind of stuff (I think she got it from costco).
Well, it doesn’t really do anything special, not that I can tell anyway. I used it to make Margueritas and various pureed veggie soups, as well as milkshakes, grinding up soy beans, and some other things, but I don’t really use blenders often enough to be able to tell you if it was significantly better than a regular blender. The sucker IS built like a classic big block American car, though. Weighs about 20 lbs and probably has more horsepower than my car. The fit and finish are very good and overall quality is excellent. I expect it to last forever.
I personally did not think it was worth the hefty price tag, but if you use the blender a lot, it would probably be a worthwhile investment for the long run.
Anyone who says it’s not that different than a normal blender doesn’t use normal blenders very often.
I love love love my Vita-mix. I got it a year ago as a present for myself when I got a new job. Yes, they’re expensive. But they’re sooooooo nice.
It’s funny that kawaiitentaclebeast says “I used it to make Margueritas and various pureed veggie soups, as well as milkshakes, grinding up soy beans” then goes on to say he’s not sure if it’s worth the hefty price tag. Ever try grinding soy beans in a normal blender? Heck, most of the blenders I’ve owned won’t even grind ice nicely for a frozen margarita - there’s always chunks in there.
The thing just pulverizes everything. You can grind grains in it. It makes the most finest pureed soup.
One thing I make quite often is Adobo sauce, which involves pureeing reconstituted dried chiles. With a normal blender, no matter how much you blend, at the end you have to put the sauce through a sieve to remove the small bits of chile skin that doesn’t get pulverized. Not so with the vita mix: it makes a lovely smooth paste with no signs of skin.
What else? It will boil water, just like the commercials say. Takes about 5 minutes. Handy when you’re making soup.
Guilty as charged. 
But honestly, you can’t grind soy beans with a normal blender? I didn’t mean grind them dry, i mean if I soaked them in water for an hour hor two.
I’m another member of the Vita-Mix Cult.
I also love, love, love, love, love my Vita-Mix. Not only do I make cheese sauce, soups, soft serve ice cream and of course the ubiquitous smoothies, I grind wheat berries, flax seeds and even milk thistle seeds and other herby goodness in it. (I’m an herbalist. The only thing I won’t try in it is stoneroot, because a friend of mine, using the old metal container Vita-Mix, put a dent in the side of hers with stoneroot. There’s a reason it’s called stoneroot.)
Athena’s right on about the even texture thing. A blender may crush ice into bits of varying size. A Vita-Mix makes a smoothie as smooth as a Slurpee.
I’ve never tried soybeans, but I have tried garbanzo beans, which IIRC, are softer than soybeans, and didn’t have very good results. Hummus requires a food processor, at least in my experience.
And before someone asks: a food processer does not replace a blender. Compared to a standard non-vita-mix blender, a food processor generally has more power (and is comparatively more expensive), but doesn’t have the fine pureeing capability of even a low-end blender. You can’t, for example, do a pureed soup in a food processor very well: it simply doesn’t puree fine enough.
On the other hand, things like hummus, which involves mushing up gummy chipeas into a paste (but not a puree) work very well in a food processor.