Nice coverage for Home Barista there. Since that's where the lever people in the USA gather I guess it's a good plug for the machine...

The new handles look nice in pictures, but some around here have complained that they aren't that great. My Strega has the older, classic handles, which are easier to remove if you want to swap them out for custom. At first I was a little bummed with the old style handle, but after a little feedback my frown flipped to a smile...

Strega noises are probably all the same. Mine is louder than the video, but still it's only for a few seconds per shot so I don't mind it.

Mine was very quiet when new but has gotten louder over time. Not a big deal as I usually preinfuse at 2 bar so the pump is barely audible. I replaced the original handles with a set of Macassar Ebony handles from Dave.

The woman in the video needs to work on her technique for restricting the lever travel. The idea is to slow the return of the lever & the flow not to pull it back down & release it several times.

I don't know if you remember that Tom Chips showed how to put insulation around his vibe pump and do other tweaks to make it quieter. Here's the link.

JohnB. wrote:Mine was very quiet when new but has gotten louder over time. Not a big deal as I usually preinfuse at 2 bar so the pump is barely audible. I replaced the original handles with a set of Macassar Ebony handles from Dave.

The woman in the video needs to work on her technique for restricting the lever travel. The idea is to slow the return of the lever & the flow not to pull it back down & release it several times.

Mine has also gotten a bit louder with time.
Need to tell the young lady it's "Rez-iv-whaa", no Rez-iv-WIRE."
Like sports guys who say the Jacksonville Jag-wires.

I wonder if commercial establishments don't reduce the record level of their mics when initiating the pump?
Who knows, maybe the new units are just tighter, quieter.
I have the newer, curved plastic handles with the Bezzera logo. I have no problem with slippage, and I do a double hand/arm pull down, as she does, due to a shot rotator cuff.

It's a pretty good video; and it's nice to be quoted. The machine was set too low, and the woman had to use all forearm on the demo; which made it look a bit clumsy.

On my machine the pump noise changes dramatically just by twisting the pump in the isolating mount a quarter turn. My guess is that the nois isolation of the mount is somewhat hot or miss; when it works properly, the machine is quiet. I'm guessing after a year, the heat degrades the foam, and the noise isolation fails.

An effective DIY or aftermarket Ulka noise suppressing mount would be a nice project for the engineers among us. It's not just the Strega that gets noisy

So after watching the video.
Seems like this would make a great shot.
although,
This lever is nothing like mine, as the lever is sprung back up? It does not seem to have the same characteristics as the lever machines I'm used to seeing.
Someone help me in explaining this different method of extraction?

This is a Spring lever machine, a design common to commercial levers. An example of a home spring lever would be an Elektra Micro Casa a leva, commonly cal an MCAL.

In the video they put the handle of the lever on backwards. That way it's harder to operate it because it will have the tendency to slip out of your hand. When putting it on right you can grip the new handle really nice because of the curve at the back which gives you a lot of control.

I've owned both a Strega with the old handles and one with the new handles. The build quality of the old handles is much better. They're solid where the new ones are hollow. The new handles do have a nicer grip because of the curve at the back (if you mount it properly). The new handles do look nicer.