Hi all,

I have spent over 6 weeks looking for an espresso machine for my husband. I was leaning towards buying a Rancilio Silvia (despite some of its negative attributes) with a PID installed. However, now I'm truly having second (ok...maybe even third and fourth) doubts about purchasing it since my husband drinks capuccinos 75% of the time and the single boiler would be a major inconvenience.

I can (but don't really want to) spend $1,750 for the machine....especially since this is his/mine/our first foray into the world of expensive espresso machines. Part of me says, let's start off with Silvia and then work our way up after a few years. I think if we start off at a Prosumer type machine, where do we go from there? Shouldn't you learn to crawl before you learn to walk? However, the other part of me says that given Silvia with PID is $900, the incovenience of it will not be worth that high price tag so I should just bite the bullet and buy the Prosumer type machine.

What say ye experts? If Prosumer, please offer your advice as to which one. Thank you all so much!

Check out the new Breville dual boiler machine at WS.
Rob

rbh1515 wrote:Check out the new Breville dual boiler machine at WS.
Rob

My concern is that Breville has historically = "run away" and the long term quality of the new machine is still untested. If they've worked through the issues, then it's certainly a feature laden machine and worth considering.

Thanks all for your help. I've decided to go with a Vario grinder and Silvano Quickmill from Chris Coffee Service.