I tried all sorts of brands, including rolls with neither a manufacturer info nor proper printing values on the spool.
Back in the day of 3mm filament being the only available stuff even stuff meant for totally different purposes.
But when we started to get more and more ‘reputable’ brands to choose from things IMHO did only get worse.
PLA is still the most used filament and a 1kg roll costs less than $6US to produce.
Not that different to other plastics.
The big thing we keep falling for is that THEIR brand and filament is better than the rest.
And the high prices are justified with development costs and such things.
It is the same scam that is done with toner and ink for paper printers.
YES, chances are that a quality brand filament performs better than a cheap no brand roll.
But I found quite often that even the most expensive brands often fall way behind their ads, specs and user expectations.
I recently tried a roll of Kingroon filament and went through it quickly and with no issues at all.
Ordered a big box more and still went through it all with no issues.
Only to now have a really pesky one where the diameter fluctuates so badly that it isn’t even any good for supports.
Elegoo I tried about 8 rolls in total, 3 of which being their rapid PETG.
Ordered the PETG because I needed to print some large and very sturdy things.
First roll made it almost till the end.
I started to get dark and brownish looking areas on my white print…
The second roll was a nightmare.
Same PETG, same color but the stuff required a total calibration.
First print with it failed after about 6 hours with a blocked nozzle.
I found some clear stuff in there that wasn’t glass more like grains of sand but crushable.
Tried again after cutting off about 5 metres but the testprint caused a block right away.
Contacted the seller, showed them some pics and they provided 3 replacement spools free of charge and asked for me to use the provided postage label to send the rest back for quality control.
Speed IS NOT everything, especially for a really large print.
What good is it, really, if you can use a speedy filament to cut 2 or 3 hours off a huge print but in return risk loosing the entire print ?
And realistically: For such expensive printers one would expect they come with a working filament sensor to adjust for changes in diameter on the go…