So I've been on this Eureka/Sanitaire kick lately, and I love my Eurekataires!  But I thought I would do a little comparison testing, so I purchased this Hoover Professional Upright.  At $125, the price was hard to pass up!  As far as I can tell, it is a solidly built vacuum.  The LED headlight is a nice touch too.  However, I'm not fond of the way it handles. 

First, it only has four carpet height adjustments.  I think if there was an intermediate adjustment between 4 and 3, it would work better.  Number 4 seems too high and number 3 seems too low, making the vacuum harder to push.  When the height adjuster is on 4, the vacuum moves forward with minimal contact with the carpet.  Then when it is pulled back, the front end lurches down.  Only then does it make decent contact with the carpet. 

I think the other thing that makes it problematic is the 6 amp motor.  It has great suction and airflow.  But by being limited to four height adjustments, it makes it harder to fine tune the nozzle height. 

So today, I decided to swap a Convertible brush roll for the four brush roll.  It does make it sound more like a traditional Convertible.  And it is slightly easier to push on #3, but it doesn't seem like a vast improvement.

So I'm wondering if any Hoover enthusiasts can enlighten me as to how to improve it.  I'm guess it's design is gear toward to commercial users with low looped commercial carpet and not the cut pile variety that I have. 

I completely understand how you feel about the height adjustment. Eureka's Dial-a-Nap was clearly a better design and I never understood why Hoover didn't try to replicate it earlier. Maybe patents stood in the way?

Anyway, I've found that when using Convertibles  on plush carpeting it's best to set the height adjustment to a lower setting, and apply a light downward pressure on handle on the forward stroke to slightly lift the nozzle, and then just vacuum normally on the back stroke. Otherwise the higher settings make too little contact with the carpeting and you have to make many repeat strokes to clean it. It's too bad it's not working out perfectly for your home. In the right conditions, those Hoovers are some of best cleaners around.

Yeah, you're right now that I think of it. I've edited my last post.  However, I still stand by my Convertible height adjustment technique. Sorry for the misinformation.