This shower head worked really well for us. No, it doesn't have the rinsing power of a 2.5 gpm head, but I didn't expect it to, and the spray turned out to be much better than I anticipated. I left the plastic cone in the shower head - just threaded it on right out of the package. The only caveat I'll add is that our house's water pressure is very good...those with low pressure might have trouble. But it has been fantastic for us, and I estimate it saved us about $25 on our first quarterly water bill.