Having gone from a Silvia to a HX machine after 7 years and later to a double boiler, I can say without a doubt, skip Silvia. The nature of the Silvia and other similar machines will have you wondering why you spent so much money on the grinder. Espresso, and particularly straight shots, is about consistency in a fairly narrow set of parameters and the control over them, and that is just not there in any useful degree in Silvia. Additionally, switching back and forth from brew to steam and back again can get tiresome, and makes for a machine that is less than capable for serving a group.

Alwyn,

I agree; if you can afford it skip the Silvia and go with something that will be able to grow with you for a long time...

When I decided to jump back into the espresso world, I got a Gaggia classic (the new 2019 model) and like PIXIllate said, it was nothing but frustration dealing with the deficiencies of the machine. Rather than mod that machine to help alleviate the deficiencies, I just gritted my teeth until I could upgrade to a better machine. If you are looking to make milk drinks, I suspect you'll tire of a single boiler / dual use machine pretty quickly.

I actually had a Bianca on order as my upgrade but ended up getting an ECM instead... This was driven mainly by lack of availability of the Bianca at the time and believe it or not, my wife liked the looks of the ECM better!

Long story short, go for the end game!

Josh

PS - Welcome to HB! Keep everyone posted on your final decision and your progress!

jrham12 wrote:Alwyn,

I agree; if you can afford it skip the Silvia and go with something that will be able to grow with you for a long time...

When I decided to jump back into the espresso world, I got a Gaggia classic (the new 2019 model) and like PIXIllate said, it was nothing but frustration dealing with the deficiencies of the machine.

I knew I couldn't be the only one baffled by the Gaggia. Please tell me it's FAR more enjoyable now you have the ECM. I'm headed in the direction of the Profitec myself. Also looking at the Atom 75 grinder as a potential replacement for the Vario at some point. What did you come from in a grinder and how do you like the ECM Atom combo?

The Silvia can be more complicated than an expensive machine to get good espresso. Temp surfing a Silvia was very annoying for me. Adding a PID helped but then the single boiler was a limitation given my milk drink affinity. Enter the Profitec Pro 700. Game changer and thing are much much easier. Spend the money and you'll be rewarded. You'll also have a machine you may be happy with for longer.

Alwyn wrote:Thanks everyone

Side note, it can be intimidating joining a new community and the fact that people are so open to respond is very re-assuring so I appreciate everyone's input!

The responses seem pretty unanimous by the looks of it maybe I was confusing the idea of learning the fundamentals... I suppose it would make sense to learn these on a machine where I can more tightly control the variables... Thanks for helping me make up my mind

You nailed it right there. You aren't learning the fundamentals when you learn on a low end home machine. You are learning tricks and work arounds to fake a good shot.

I learned espresso on Faema Due and then had to learn how make something approaching drinkable on the crappy home machines that were available 20+ years ago. At which time the Silvia was the Grail of home machines. I tried many machines from Delonghi, Saeca and Rancilio only to eventually buy and refurbish a used, abused and neglected CMA Commercial single group SBDU.

It sounds like you have decided to skip to quality at the start. Good on Ya' mate!

Jump in and enjoy!

If you're already here, meaning HomeBarista, you will do well to just skip the Silvia/Entire SBDU* sector entirely.

Nothing wrong with starting out with one of those machines if all you know about espresso is a moka pot, cafe bustello and a trip you took to italy 16 years ago. You could have fun "pulling shots" and making milk bubbles while you POSSIBLY slowly inch your way to learning more about espresso.

But you're already here. You've got an idea of whats possible, and you want to try and achieve that. Skip the entry level machines entirely. The catch 22 of a machine like the silvia, is, its aimed at new comers, but you wont have the skills to use it to make good espresso, until you're ready to move on to a much better machine.


The Bianca is a great choice. Lots of other great choices too. I personally wouldnt go HX** myself, Id stick with a dual boiler. If not the Bianca, definitely get flow control.. which if youj can get the Profitec FCD by itself, is essentially all the E61 Dual Boilers minus Vibiemme and possibly others. Otherwise its Bianca, Profitec Pro 700 or ECM Synchronika.

PIXIllate wrote:I knew I couldn't be the only one baffled by the Gaggia. Please tell me it's FAR more enjoyable now you have the ECM. I'm headed in the direction of the Profitec myself. Also looking at the Atom 75 grinder as a potential replacement for the Vario at some point. What did you come from in a grinder and how do you like the ECM Atom combo?

YES, the ECM is SOOO much more enjoyable than that Gaggia! Night and day difference. I'll continue on since it may be good info for Alwyn as well:

Aside from the temperature stability (surfing) issues that spearfish25 mentioned on the Silvia, I did manage to get my OPV adjusted down to about 10.5 bar but still had consistency issues. I think mainly because the boiler is so small that intra-shot stability just isn't there. There are pre-heater mods out there, but I just didn't want to deal with it. It seemed like even with my best prep routine and temp surfing practices, every shot was a roll of the dice whether it would come out good or not.

In terms of the upgrade, I had considered the Profitec Pro 300 which seems to be a good little machine, but I knew I wanted to add flow profiling to my toolbox eventually so I focused on an E61 dual boiler. After dealing with temperature issues with the Gaggia, I was steering away from HX machines because of the variability of cooling flushes knowing that my wife would be using it as well. (Wanted to keep it as simple as possible for her.) I really liked the Bianca's flexibility with being able to mount the reservoir on the side which would make it much easier to access since I would be putting it under an overhead cabinet. However, my wife didn't care for the looks of it with the wood knobs so I started showing her the Pro 600, Pro 700, Lucca M58 from Clive, Vetrano 2B, etc... But when I showed her the Synchronika she said she liked that one the best. My response was "that's the most expensive one though" with her response being "but I don't like the other ones" so the deal was done! This was after I had decided to switch machines because the Bianca was still on backorder and with the Covid was exploding in Italy so I guessed it would be a longer wait than anticipated.

Regarding the Atom 75, no complaints so far although I will say that sometimes the dose variability (without changing the time setting) is a little more than I expected, even with a full hopper. Not a show stopper though, maybe +/- 0.5 grams. Very fast and very quiet compared to my old grinder (Quamar m80e). It seems to be very consistent on grind size and the micro-adjust works well. I have the single button programmed for 0.2 seconds to use to purge a couple grams each morning before the first shot of the day. I had seriously considered the Niche but she really frowned on the idea of a single-dosing workflow having to possibly include RDT and WDT. So the Atom continues the theme of keeping things simple for her. I am still planning on getting a Niche sometime for my use in single dosing when trying out different beans.

Hope that helps!
Josh