For me, I was pretty disappointed with the entire level of quality from the start. I did a similar comparison as you and thought I would be ok with the GS. I was wrong. I will say, I did fully understand I was buying Chinese vs Taiwan and knew there would be a difference, but I never thought there would be such a big difference.
Fit and finish is just poor. Does it turn and run, sure. However, things like the engaging the half nut isn't consistent. For example, if I am doing an even thread I should be able to engage at any main number. I can't. If you try to engage at 1 it works fine, right on the mark. If you try to engage of some other number, it may jam a bit and you can't tell if you were too early or too late. On one value it may be one way and another it may be the opposite. So in the end I wait and always use the same number which means in many cases waiting for a long time for the dial to come around. Then once you do that, hope the thread setting doesn't kick out of gear in the middle of the the thread. Having had to take the front plate off of the machine a few times to try and fix it, now it leaks oil (albeit slowly) and I have to add new oil periodically. I have tried to seal it with RTV, but the oil always finds a way out.
I could go on, but I think you get the idea. I need to just sell mine and order a new one, but it pisses me off every time I use it. I think Precision Mathews is a good company in general, but I do feel like I have been let down by them on this machine. Matt didn't seem to have any interest in trying to make it right from the beginning. He basically said, well you bought a chinese lathe.... I get that, but I think at this point in time, it's clear they even know the quality was **** and they had to make changes to them. I am the one sitting holding the bag.
I don't know if I will buy from them again. I am sure I would be happy with either GT version, but I feel like I was a bit left to hang out on my own with it.
