malling wrote:I never contradicted that you can get a hx of the same build quality cheaper, it is a reality that two products of equal quality is sold at two different prices, to get a db down there you'll need to cut corners.

You didn't, but you did cut in to a discussion where such a hypothesis was stated earlier. If we share the same opinion, we are wasting bandwidth here...

malling wrote:Besides I could easily argue against prosumer ranged HX, you can say allot of flattering things about them, but in my experience these does have some problems in relation to consistency when compared to the DB's, and pretty much all of them drastically improves on this, if modded with restrictors, this make them work as these should in a home setting. The same can be said about entry level commercial, these definitely need to be modded with restrictors to make them practical at home.

At least all Rocket's hxs come with factory installed very good restrictors, they're not optional. As far I understand (which might not be too much) most prosumer hxs nowadays have restrictors. Even Oscar II. Why would anyone get a machine without them, since the cost is only about a tenner?

But if your experience comes from an older hx without restrictors, I'm beginning to get it why you think the way you do.

malling wrote:...it is a reality that two products of equal quality is sold at two different prices

I don't think you can quantify or measure quality. There's a lot of misunderstanding about the meaning of "quality", and as much or more about the meaning of "commercial quality". There are many kinds of quality, but the two that help me understand the concept most clearly are the quality of design and the quality of conformance.

Design quality starts with the vision of the product as seen by its creator. It encompasses every aspect of aesthetics, e.g. curves, contours, colors, curb appeal, the sensory input it provides its owners / users, ergonomics etc. Design quality includes the intended level of functionality along with mechanical dependencies like durability, duty cycles etc. And it has to consider the intended market. A design for an espresso machine will not be the same for every customer segment, as a "price no object" approach will result in a different product from one intended to compete with $1500 machines. A design for commercial use will be based on a solid duty cycle (e.g. pulling 40 shots an hour 10 hours a day for a year before major mechanical maintenance) while a machine for home use may be designed to a 10 shot a day max with a minimum 90 second recovery or routine (e.g. "cooling flush") between back-to-backs. A commercial handle on a part held & manipulated for hours a day will be designed for durability and for ergonomics (e.g. to minimize repetitive use syndromes), so it may lack the elegance of the same piece on a home machine. And which handle costs more depends on what it looks like, how it has to be made, etc. So a PF handle on a commercial machine may be too big and ugly to pass muster in a home kitchen but could cost 3 times as much.

How does one "adjust" a design for cost? The specified materials are an obvious place to start, with the approach to construction a close second. If you want every pair of mating surfaces to be machined to close tolerances and joined mechanically, it will cost a lot more than if you plan to use adhesive bonding between stamped or rough-cast parts. It can be in the tolerances of manufacture, e.g. perfect, consistent, tight panel gaps at 0.1mm +/- 5% are more costly to produce than 1 mm gaps +/- 10%. Designing for easy maintenance is also costly, as being able to take things apart and reassemble them to their original functional spec requires more precision and more parts than slapping adhesive on the pieces and sticking them together for a limited lifespan that ends in the trash.

Whatever the design spec, it has to be turned into a finished product. The accuracy with which the design specifications are met is the prime determinant of quality of conformance. Some very well known products sprang from designs so complex and restricting that they were impossible to manufacture without making serious compromises in one or more of the above factors. Others ended up costing so much more to make than the intended selling price demanded that they were business failures. We all know of something that was so good that we couldn't believe we got it for so little money....until the source stopped making it, raised the price, or went belly up. It's common to recontract at a lower cost with a different supplier, and the savings come from reduced quality of conformance to the same design.

I was amazed to find a manual driver's door mirror adjustment on my '82 240D and my wife's '83 300DT when we got them. For $24k and $30k back then, I thought it must have been a mistake since the passenger side mirror was electrically adjusted. The service manager explained that the driver could easily use the inside lever to adjust his/her mirror, so it would have been needless weight and expense plus more to wear out or break had they used a motor where there was no functional benefit. The W123 was probably the last Mercedes to be built like a bank vault, designed for easy maintenance, and a pleasure to ride in, work on, and drive. And it was T-boned by a limo going 35 when it was a year old, but was readily repairable because of great design plus quality of construction and materials - after 4 months in the shop, it emerged as tight as new and never even developed a wind whistle in the ensuing decade. And we got 11 years out of the '83 and $12,500 for it when we traded it in. So was that manual mirror poor quality? I certainly don't think so - but many of our friends did.

So two products may only appear to be of equal quality because of similarities in aesthetics, external materials etc. But if you look more carefully, you'll find the differences. You (almost always) get what you pay for.

I don't know how, but I posted this twice. Please remove with my apologies and thanks!
David

As long as this thread is I think it proves the point that there is love for the HX machines still today.

There's a bit of flexibility they have which is not available in DB machines: you can vary the temp of your shots on the fly. No or low flush will give you a hotter shot, and the longer you flush the cooler your shot will be. The temps won't be precise every time, but with practice, you can get close to your target. Just as a lever machine isn't precisely the same every pull, you can get close to your target every shot with some practice.

If you are willing to wait a bit you can dial in the temps on your DB machine, and it will likely be far more precise than 99% of the HX users out there. That's a great thing about DB machines. I don't think you need all those bells and whistles on a machine to get a perfect shot either, although they may help some.

Hey, I'm a lever guy so of course I don't THINK I need all those bells and whistles. Not that there's anything wrong with them either. I'd love the opportunity to play with a DB machine for a while too. And of course, my Strega has some nifty bells and whistles in there too; I'm not blind to that either. At one time I wanted a PID controlled machine, but currently I'm happy with the old standard pressure switch.

When I was new to the effort of trying to make great espresso, I thought that the decision whether to get a DB or HX was a no-brainer; why not buy a machine that simplifies one of the variables? After using a Brewtus II for a number of years, I became much more comfortable with my own expectation of what good espresso is and how to produce it. After that learning curve, the importance of the benefits from a DB became almost irrelevant to my purchase decision. At that point I was confident that I would be able to produce my desired espresso from any well designed machine, and my purchase decision for the successor to my BII was based on variables like ease of maintenance, size, the type of results to be expected from the brewhead design and the internal water path, etc. I have been an HX user for almost four years and am very pleased with it.

Dogshot wrote:I became much more comfortable with my own expectation of what good espresso is and how to produce it. After that learning curve, the importance of the benefits from a DB became almost irrelevant to my purchase decision. At that point I was confident that I would be able to produce my desired espresso from any well designed machine, and my purchase decision for the successor to my BII was based on variables like ease of maintenance, size, the type of results to be expected from the brewhead design and the internal water path, etc.

yes!! Or, as the old saying goes, "only the poor carpenter blames his tools".