This will be a new construction and we have never had a professional gas range top.

What general are do you live in(ie suburban Milwaukee, southeastern Montana)?

Are you going with all burners or adding grill and/or griddle?

1. Appearance:
CC has a really nice high-end residential finish
BS has more of a commercial heavy appearance

2. Burners:
CC: has open burners and all are the same size and big (23k)
BS: has open burners with 3 different sizes standard (2-22k, 1-15k, and 1 simmer). BS also allows for custom burner sizes and locations (at a cost)

3. Grates:
CC: one piece cast iron per burner (wok will need a wok ring)
BS: 2 piece cast iron per burner (no wok ring needed - remove the inner grate)

4. Burner Cleaning: (both have drawers at the bottom of rangetop to collect spills)
CC: also has stainless shields under grates to prevent spills from dropping down into rangetop
(if spills drop past shields - all 4 grates may need to be removed to clean)
BS: remove a single grate to access spills that drop into the rangetop

5. Grill:
CC: 30k with ceramic rods over burners cased in stainless and has cast iron grates
BS: 30k with stainless shields over burners and cast iron grates

6. Costs:
Similar

7. Service & Support
Neither has an authorized dealer close by where we need it installed.
(However our local BS dealer put in writing they would support it even if they needed to drive the long distance)

8. History (this may not be exact but how it appears based on all the research)
CC: some people have issues with simmer (adjustments may fix this) - others have stated they need a smaller burner
BS: Garland is a long time commercial range and they sold the residential part which is now BlueStar. A few years back, BS seemed to have some quality and support issues, especially with the ovens. It seems these issues may have been corrected.

9. Reliability
Overall both seem to be good.

So what did we do and why:

We purchased the BS 48". The key determining factors for us were the burner sizes, grill design, and support. We really liked having different size burners since we have a variety of items we cook, especially the small burner for lots of delicate simmers. The CC burners may be fine for simmer but with this amount of money, it was just too much of a gamble for us - especially since BS had a variety of burner sizes. Also, when I look into our outdoor Weber grill, which really does a good job, it has shields over the burners similar to BS instead of ceramic rods. Maybe others have rods or the rods may even be better - I don't really know but liked the similarity of the BS to the Weber.

Conclusion:

Both CC or BS would probably been fine for us. The CC looked better but we liked BS having variable size burners, a grill setup similar to our outdoor Weber grill, and the support our local BS dealer offered.

We ordered the BS a couple weeks ago and 11 days later it arrived. Hope to have it operational in about a month. Maybe I'll post details and pics later.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/appl/msg0112210715919.html

I ended up ordering the BS rangetop with 6 burners. It was mostly the look that decided it for me, honestly. I was a little bit worried about the simmer, too, because it would be a big headache for me to go through multiple adjustments that some CC's seem to need to get a good simmer.

But really, I think it's splitting hairs and they are both good.

Does that seem about right?

Thanks again!