Coffee Appreciation

Have you noticed a difference

No, I've noticed that the 53mm tamper I bought doesn't fit in the basket for some reason, meantime without a proper tamp the shot runs too fast obviously and tastes terrible (again obviously).

Also, if you don't use the pressurised basket do you need to have a classic tamper, rather than the one on the machine, so that you can get the pressure on the puck?

Yeah.

Rich, I've just checked both baskets with my verniers and they're both 53mm straight sided. They don't seem to taper at all. I think what's more annoying is that the tamper that comes on the machine is a rather rounded 51mm which, when in the basket, seems to be about a cm too small!!
What type of tamper did you buy? Could you file it down a little, or would that pretty much ruin it?

I bought the 53mm one from AnotherCoffee online. Haven't any verniers to hand but it definitely doesn't fit in the basket (and there's no chance i got the wrong one sent to me, because if it was a 58mm that would be really obvious).

Will just send it back if I can't figure a solution (I don't have access to a lathe, would be useful- filing isn't going to be precise enough but hey, I don't want to bother with that anyway).

Tamper that comes with the machine is poor, don't even consider it a tamper really, as you don't need to tamp with the pressurised basket anyway.