weebit_nutty wrote:there's no right or wrong, and who are you to say.

His statement was ironically, at least I understood so.
The Speedster costs 8.6k€ right now which is nearly $11k.

nanook wrote:... I must admit that once in a while I pull amazing shot, sometime awfull shot, but an average well above what's available commercially. When I sometime read about how much manipulation people do to their coffee before they lock the portafilter, I just wonder if we might have lost something in the process by over thinking everything!.......Just have to thank my italian friend for the best advice....."once you know the basic, Stop reading about it and pull shots!"

Any given set of equipment requires some technique to get the best from it. As we saw from the Rancilio Silvia, it had an excellent overall design but horrible temperature control. The addition of a PID increased its ability to create better espresso more consistently. back then the only way to get a machine with that type of repeatability was to add the PID to one. Now we see them universally accepted by manufacturers across the board. Does one degree difference matter? Yes. When yoyu are looking for the best coffee possible. Our PID "experiments" were about a dozen or so years ago. Knowing the "basics" is great, but many strive to create better- dare I say, to create "exceptional coffee," and do so consistently, that is a challenge that takes a combination of all factors. A hammer, a flat rock, a pot, and a clean sock will create coffee and avoid the pitfalls of technology and losing something by over-thinking.

I think a thing the OP is missing is that tinkering -- whether with gear, roasting profiles, or brewing techniques -- can be fun in its own right, especially if one is tinkering in a goal-oriented way. It isn't just about getting good coffee for the least amount of effort or money possible. It is about finding new ways to explore our love of all things coffee related.

And when it helps you improve the quality of your coffee -- well that is even better!

I removed everything, this was going nowhere. The problem being that this argument was base on a value dear to me, about asking manufacturer to deliver a product worth every penny we spent to buy, and get the best out of our investment, but it seem this value is irrelevent here, because what's worth a thousand to one may equivalent to a few penny to the other, and I've been clearly reminded by some that you should never comment on the price of an item, because it's a passion!!! and I was in no way in my wright to say what's good or wrong....I'm sorry but as a human I consider that my opinion and good judjement are what define me!

Sorry folks but I'm still a strong believer that the true value is inherent to the quality of the product and what it can produce not to the size of the pocket of the buyer, but the modern society consumerism is sometime pushing us on a different path. I can only imagine what Doug would have been able to deliver to us if we would have told him that we would have paid a 1000$ for the pharos. I'm not affiliated in anyway to him, im just using this example because I think we shared a little bit of the same philosophy!

Sorry to have taken your time and forum space for this, signing out!

Rob

[creative nickname] wrote:I think a thing the OP is missing is that tinkering can be fun in its own right......It isn't just about getting good coffee for the least amount of effort or money possible.

For those who know me, they know that i've done more than my share of thinkering and loved it, the cremina apprenticeship is tough, but the inevitable rite of passage to the get the reward from the beast! The only thing that worries me if when the thinkering seam to become the only thing that matter wich is the feeling I sometime get reading post. As for the comment on the least effort and money, I won't go there! just sufficient to say that my point was efficiency....wich mean the best possible result with reasonnable mean.....that a far cry from cheap and easy! Come taste my coffee and we'll talk!

Like coffee, like mechanic, like manual work, love when everything come together in my cup!

Rob

Nanook, I can personally assure you that using the HG-one in stock condition still allows you to make wonderful coffee with minimal fuss. I swapped out the handles on mine for a beautiful pair of cocobolo ones; it doesn't add much functionality, but it looks prettier and it feels better in the hand. Other than that I use it just as it was designed to be used, and find it fantastic. So don't assume that just because some folks like to tinker and modify things, that the product wasn't built and designed well!

Glad to hear that! As for the wood I agree with you, can't tell why, but wood and coffee blend together in an elegant natural fashion!

Maybe if I had follow the introduction of the hg-one on the forum from the beginning i've would have been less price shocked. It's just that sometime the increase in price of certain item is not representative of the quality but more of the hype of the activity, and it's still a thousand bucks for a hand grinder, so I think it was legetimate to ask?

H-B is an engineers' playground, for better and worse. Any machine (and I do mean "any") is just a blank canvas on which the owner can put his personal stamp. It's almost always a "his" - one of the drawbacks of being an engineers' playground.

In my history on coffee boards, the only important machine improvement I've seen by an owner (and a very important improvement) was the introduction of PID controllers by Greg Scace and Andy Schecter on their Silvias eons ago on alt.coffee. It has since been adopted in one form or another by nearly all high-end espresso machine manufacturers.

I'm sure I have overlooked something else worthwhile and would be glad to be corrected.