I can't speak for the other poster, but In my experience (KK road machine, Cyclops Fluid 2 Tacx Satori, Tacx Vortex smart, Wahoo Kickr, Tacx neo), the new crop of 'direct drive' trainers are fantastic.

I suppose, the real question to you, is what do you want from your trainer? Feel, compatibility with software, power metrics, price (doesn't seem to be your case though), etc.

The KK is known for it's heavy flywheel, and therefore 'road like feel'. If that's what you like, you'll be seriously impressed with the Kickr.

The neo doesn't quite as good of a road feel as the kickr, but it certainly is quiet, which has become more and more important to me.

I rode it last night...impressions:

1. set up - no longer have to pump the tire. Great, fewer steps before I ride, the better.
2. way quieter. Definitely not silent, but I think my tire noise was the main culprit. I used to torture my cheap soundbar at max volume. Now, it is at mid volume and I hear just fine.
3. powermatch - I still used powermatch to simply only change one variable at a time. I think I will just have trainer road ignore my P1s and run off the Direto's PM, see how that goes. I will still display my P1s on my garmin and use that data for logging. If the displayed power is different than what I see on TR, I will either calibrate, enter an offset or reenable power match. (Assuming the P1s are never, ever, ever wrong...of course, not necessarily true.)
4. Power jumps were much faster! This was a big thing I wanted. I did the Parhah (?) workout which ends with a pair of 108-50XW jumps for 10s. On the vortex, I would need to shift to big ring to even have a chance. With this, I was in 36/~15 and it smoothly ramped me up over 4-5 seconds. Just fine.
5. Bugs - none yet in my extensive testing. One 30 minute TR ride.
6. overall - I like it.

Yes and no. I miss the easy wheel on attachment and simplicity. But, the quality of my workouts is much better with the smart trainer. I still have it, but I have not ridden it in a couple months.

Actually, price is a huge consideration. I have very few bikes (road and TT). My whole focus is training and racing. My thinking is that I spend a lot of time on the trainer during the winter, and my 10+ year-old USA1UP trainer, while durable, is not very consistent in it's resistance (probably needs cleaning), so I'm wanting a new "used" trainer. I'm fairly convinced I can find a better trainer the the USA1UP, but I'm not sold on the need for a smart trainer since I have power meters on both bikes. And I like the idea of the Elite Drivo - I hear it's quite smooth - but I'm concerned with people complaining about apparent increasing resistance in erg mode (not a fault of the trainer per se, but the software that regulates the brake to regulate set wattage).

Good stuff! Thanks!

I made the exact same change as this guy. However, while I had no wear when using a dedicated trainer-specific tire, using a GP4K would send little shreds of tire towards the back wall. While the KKRM was very good (far better than the wind and mag trainers I would occasionally have to use elsewhere which felt awful), the KICKR is a whole different world. The only reason I want to upgrade to one of the new generation is noise, but since the issues with my KICKR appear to be solveable with a new top cap, I'll probably do that and keep using it because it works so well.

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The point is, ladies and gentleman, that speed, for lack of a better word, is good. Speed is right, Speed works. Speed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

I've done two rides on the direto now after having every other trainer ride I'd ever done on wheel on trainers.

It's no competition. Hands down if you have the budget there is no reason to get a wheel on over a direct drive. It's night on the moon vs day on Mercury different. Better.

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https://markmcdermott.substack.com

What are used direct drive smart trainers going for?

$900 USD (Flux, Directo) - $1,700 USD (Neo).

Edit: Doh, I missed the word "used." Multiply above by 0.67.