Answer to grinder question seems not as straightforward as it may appear (at least from my observations) that more uniform grinder gives better in cup result with any coffee for any coffee geek. SD can be considered big advantage for most home barista, however conical vs flat, construction, manufacturing tolerance (alignment) comes to play with less soluble coffee (lighter roast). The less soluble coffee means more you have to push to bring out the flavours (finer grind, higher extraction potential of water (magnesium and calcium ions), higher temperature, higher brew ratio (more solvent - water), longer extraction time. All this translates that grinder with worse alignment or conical with burr geometry with wider particle distribution cause fine particles to overectract (bitterness/astringency) but conical grinder with hard, less brittle beans produce significant amount of boulders - these gives weird underectracted acidity, salty tones. However there are also disadvantages of high uniformity grind: it does reduce mounthfeel, espresso is not that thick as with big conical burrset this comes to play if the one want to use beans roasted to city + and darker. With light roasted beans longer preinfusion and slow ramp up is a must to prevent channeling (wdt and perfect tamp of course too), I also had to decrease maximal pump pressure to 7 bars. The more uniform grind in most cases really shines in high brew rations, there are many of us that simply do not accept 50g watery espresso shot. So to sum up, if you are on budget want a high quality espresso grinder and dont mind manual kinu M47 is exeptional grinder (bplus apollo and kazak tura are probably similar), good burrset, fair alignment, easy and repeatable grind setting, if manual is not accetable niche is a very good option (alignment and reliability bit questionable but reviews are very good), if you want to explore secrets of light roasted beans, you have to pay...
Video ethiopian nansebo beans stopped around 1st crack (declared as filter roast), lm strada 17g basket 17g in 50g out, slow preinfusion, juicy, sweet, no weird acidity / signs of overextraction diy water from barista hustle SCA recipe, only magnesium ions for extraction, bicarbonate as buffer: