I think the Silvano is a great machine and works well when paired with the Vario. The beauty of the Silvano is its simplicity. I actually liked the toggle switches for the operation. The steam was very dry and frothed milk very well in about a minute. The technique with the Silvano is different than using a bigger machine, but once you learn it, it works great. I like it because it can be done at the same time as pulling the shot and is independent of what the brew boiler is doing. The brew boiler is a good size with good wattage on the heater and it PID-controlled. What more could one ask for in a brew boiler. If QM had a rotary E61 with a steam block like the Silvano and could also be plumbed in, it would have stopped there. (I instead upgraded to a Duetto II.) The Silvano is capable of providing the diligent home user with a shot that is just as good as any of their local baristas, and especially the chain coffee shops. The only thing I did not care for on the Silvano was the dangerous hot water feature. There should be a warning NOT to use it with a rounded-bottom cup! I would vote to lose that feature altogether and somehow, someway add a preinfusion for the group. BTW, someone mentioned that the group is directly attached to the boiler, but CCS denies this. It is not attached to the boiler according them CCS. Can anyone confirm for certain any machine that actually does this besides Cimbali?

seasterl wrote:BTW, someone mentioned that the group is directly attached to the boiler, but CCS denies this. It is not attached to the boiler according them CCS. Can anyone confirm for certain any machine that actually does this besides Cimbali?

From the previous page:

Beezer wrote:I'm guessing it's better at pulling shots than most other machines in its class because it has a built-in PID, it has a large commercial group, and the group is directly attached to a fairly large boiler... Silvia has a smaller boiler, and the boiler is not directly attached to the group head, so it's more prone to temperature fluctuations between the boiler and the group.

Actually the Rancilio Silvia grouphead is directly connected to the boiler as shown below:


Diagram courtesy of Eric Svendson

There's lots of espresso machines that have the grouphead connected to the boiler. Most lever espresso machines, Bezzera BZ02 / Livia 90, Elektra Semiautomatica, Olympia Maximatic... to name only a few. That said, I learned long ago not to waste time attempting to predict performance based on a spec sheet or peeking at the interior.

Great graphic! Where is that from?

See http://users.rcn.com/erics/ for more diagrams from Eric (erics).

I stand corrected. I guess what I was referring to was that Silvia's grouphead is not mounted directly in line with the boiler, which would make it more of a "saturated group" design. It was my impression that Silvano's group was mounted directly to the bottom of the boiler rather than being offset in front of the boiler like Silvia.

However, I agree that trying to predict a machine's performance based on specs is probably a waste of time. Sometimes it's hard to resist though, especially when a new machine comes out and there's not much real world data about it yet.

randytsuch wrote:I think a Silvano deserves a better grinder then the Infinity, it will limit how good your shots are.

A vario would be an improvement, and would work fine.

Randy

Finally I just bought a new Rancilio Rocky doserless from the US. Will probably get it in 1-2 weeks.

Will post some result with the Silvano later.

Anything new on the Silvano?

From what I can see, not much has changed on the next version. They have increased the steamer to 800W and reduced the boiler to 600W (to leave it still able to connect to a 110V 15A socket), I guess mainly to counter the complaints about steaming power. I don't think this is going to change things significantly because a 15% increase in thermoblock wattage will help steaming, but not a huge deal. The drop in boiler power will increase the warm up and back-to-back recovery times, which I'm sure people will start to whine about, just as they did with the steamer. I also heard that they removed the hot water feature in the new version, and the OPV can now be adjusted without opening the case; no big deal there. The biggest issue I think is the price. The new $1000 tag is just a bit too close to the HX band of machines, and I suspect that most people will decide to slide up another couple of hundred bucks to get one of those instead. I think they will probably have to drop the price to at least $899 to get any major interest.

Actually we went to 1000 watts on the heat bank and changed the pump so there is no pulsing anymore it simply puts out steady constant steam. The expansion valve was not only moved for easy access it was also changed to the same commercial one we use in the NEW Andreja Premium. If the Euro were to hang around 1.3 the price you mentioned would most likely be possible unfortunately it will not get off the 1.4 mark. You are correct that one could move you to a HX machine for a few hundred more but you still have a HX machine and still have to temperature surf.

Mr. Nachtrieb, thank you for the information provided. Can you please comment on Zimberto's concern regarding a potential increase in warm-up and shot recovery times due to the boiler power being reduced to 600W ? I believe that concern may be shared by many of us, so it would be great to hear your perspective about it.

Thanks in advance !