Please Advise! Flow Profile Espresso Machine (DE1XL vs Slayer)

#1: Post by **skek1052** » March 2nd, 2021, 9:07 pm

Hello everyone!
Though I've been loving drinking coffee, I didn't really know what I was drinking, and I'm relatively new to coffee world.
I'm really interested in flow profile machine and ready to jump into the rabbit hole

.

After researching machines, I've come up with DE1XL (because only DE1XL comes in white, otherwise I'd go with DE1PRO) and Slayer. Or maybe Dalla Corte Mina. It's all due to my personal preferences on esthetics.
Some of you may think it's nonsense, comparing DE1XL with Slayer, but in a newbie's perspective, it looks like DE1XL has the capability of Slayer. Please bear with me if I'm making a stupid statement.

So my questions will be
- What will be the benefits of each machine?
- If you were to choose a machine between them, what would you go with? And what are the reasons?

Looks like my ultimate question is whether Slayer is worth that much of money or not, and if I'll be able to feel that.

Thank you all and really look forward to hearing from you!

#2: Post by **Jeff** » March 3rd, 2021, 3:28 am

Let me make it harder or easier for you, depending on your perspective. If for home use, where you don't need the "commercial-use" warranty on the PRO, buy a DE1+ and the white conversion parts, or get them powder coated locally.

Decent Espresso news

On the machines, what do you have or intend to buy for tire grinder? What roast levels do you enjoy or think you'd want to explore?

March 3rd, 2021, 5:44 am

Thank you so much for your insight Jeff!

Yes it will be exclusively home use, and I only considered DE1XL because of the cost for the white parts per the conversation with John and per my calculation; but I think I'll need to consider DE1+ as well. FYI, I'm not a big fan of milk drink, but I thought it will be better to have an option for better steaming, but I'll reconsider

.

In terms of grinder, I currently have a Niche, but I'm willing to invest more to have EG-1 or single dose titan grinder.

For the roast levels, I'm very interested in light medium to light roast because it enlightened me that coffee is actually fruit, and I'm so excited to explore fruity and tea like flavor of coffee; to be honest, I only loved chocolaty dark roast until very recent.

Since I'm a type of person to go deepest anyway when I'm into, I thought it'd be better to go direct to Slayer and experience so called "high end". But I can't help but to ask whether it's worth it or not because a Slayer costs about two Decent Espresso machines and I keep hearing the higher cost gives diminishing returns as it goes "high end". Without experiencing what it is, it's very difficult to decide...:'(

If you can give any advices on my thought process or anything, I'd really appreciate it!

#4: Post by **BaristaBoy E61** » March 3rd, 2021, 7:09 am

skek1052 wrote:If you can give any advices on my thought process or anything, I'd really appreciate it!

Welcome to HB Yong.

Judging from the 'feel' of your posts, it seems to me that you might be the type of person that would appreciate the range of parameters that can be so easily changed, modified & tweaked with a Decent, that no other machine, not even a Slayer can match.

What do you think?

#5: Post by **arcus** » March 3rd, 2021, 8:01 am

If you really are the type of person that wants to go down the rabbit hole then the Decent machine is the way to go for sure. There's a community of like minded individuals on their forum as well.

March 4th, 2021, 12:08 am

BaristaBoy E61 wrote: Welcome to HB Yong.

Judging from the 'feel' of your posts, it seems to me that you might be the type of person that would appreciate the range of parameters that can be so easily changed, modified & tweaked with a Decent, that no other machine, not even a Slayer can match.

What do you think?

Thanks Steve!
Yes I think I'm that type of person, can't be 100% sure because never experienced yet, but would love to play with tweaks.

I think I was not sure if I should go with a Slayer for the sake of Slayer

Thank you so much for your opinion, what I want for my espresso machine is getting more clear!

March 4th, 2021, 12:11 am

arcus wrote:If you really are the type of person that wants to go down the rabbit hole then the Decent machine is the way to go for sure. There's a community of like minded individuals on their forum as well.

Yes I agree the community will be very helpful and fun to learn espresso.
Thanks for the advise!

#8: Post by **darrenho** » March 4th, 2021, 2:05 pm

If I had that kind of money for a Slayer, I could or would bump up my budgets and get both...

March 4th, 2021, 3:37 pm

I am a biased Slayer owner

A few relevant recent threads.

Why would you not buy a DE1?

I responded in post 21.

I have a Slayer which was a retirement gift to my wife and I. I didn't think wearing a shirt that said "I worked 40 years for this Shirt" was quite enough.

My Slayer is non standard colors. One of those reasons can be found here -
Those who say "looks don't matter" don't know my spouse

Elsewhere on the forums I have spoken about the morning coffee ritual. The Slayer gives me enough variables to do so much and make such great espresso but without the worry of every little aspect of tech and the fear of not doing it right, so it becomes a really wonderful, peaceful, special part of the morning.

My 2 cents is really think about what is important to you. What motivates you in this journey? If you are super data driven person maybe the DE. I am a big picture guy that doesn't sweat every detail, but appreciates quality and experience. Both machines have quality; both have a very different experience.

If you were to buy new you would get V4 which has some upgrades over V3. I would recommend considering the coatings available for the legs and body.

From the iDrinkCoffee Canada website:

The dream machine.

Whether it's the cornerstone of your cafe or the prize jewel in your kitchen, the Slayer Espresso Single Group is unmatched in design and innovative technologies.

With flow rate control via patented needle-valve technology, a commercial group head, an independent brew tank for impeccable temperature stability and an individual tank for unlimited steam capacity, you'll have all the necessary tools to extract the best flavors from each coffee over and over again.

This machine was built for commercial use, but fits right in at home, too.

Key Features:

Patented needle valve for restricted flow rate aka PreBrew
Independent brew tanks
PID temperature control, adjustable in 0.1° increments
Electronic V3 grouphead rated to 1 million cycles
Commercial portafilter with 58mm, 18-gram basket
Nanotech-coated precision shower screens
Handcrafted with wood handles and actuators
Internal rotary vane pump
Hot water tap
Non-slip feet
Shot mirror
New updates introduced in November 2020:
Pump: upgraded from gear to rotary vane pump (increases to 9 bars in 1 second, is consistent & tuneable). Can be
direct plumb or draw from a water tank, within 1 meter of the machine.

Power switch; located internally for safe, quick repair scenarios.

Power save: "Interrupt Power Save" by moving actuator will interrupt "Power Save" and begin the heat-up process.
Similarly, if machine is set to "Sleep" and enter "Power Save" mode at 3PM--moving the actuator initiates machine
heat-up cycle. Machine automatically re-enters "Power Save" mode 1 hour after the last drink was made.

Shot counter: one counter for lifetime of shots pulled on machine as well as a resettable shot counter.

A new heating system lets the machine heat both boilers simultaneously for better performance. To take full advantage of the
new system's capabilities, we developed a new circuit board to drive an additional solid state relay (SSR) and run a
new PID algorithm

PID Setting: the machine's PID algorithm has been completely re-written, resulting in a dramatic increase in
temperature stability and machine performance. These settings are now tuned and locked; in the past they were
available to the end user to adjust, this is no longer necessary and the option has been removed from the menu.

Upgraded parts; water inlet changed from plastic to copper; upgraded composition of rubber on 3-way vent tube
to alleviate oxidation and cracking; all solenoids are forged body to prevent any leaks as result of bulging o-rings.
Ultimately, these upgrades were made to reduce the cost of maintenance needed on the machine.

Reservoir Drip Tray & Removable Drip Tray are available as an accessory to the stock machine.

#10: Post by **Terranova** » March 4th, 2021, 4:09 pm

skek1052 wrote: So my questions will be
- What will be the benefits of each machine?
- If you were to choose a machine between them, what would you go with? And what are the reasons?

The Decent owners are a special part in a special community.
Everything is really transparent, you get fantastic advice by enthusiastic people.
There are more and more updates coming, most machines are upgradable.
The machine has so many parameters, although I personally think that this is not always an advantage.

We tried to pull a Slayer shot on a Decent, the grind setting for the Slayer nearly choked the Decent when simulating the so called "Slayer shot", so I think this gives much room for interpretation.
With a long pre infusion / prebrew, there is nothing left to be desired IMHO.
v4 Slayer has an upgraded rota pump, LCD display is also no more "beta".
The sound between the Slayer and Decent is like compairing a W12 engine vs a 4 cylinder or so.
Decent costs from here 500€ for the whole machine and 3400€ for the software.

Slayer costs you u$8k ?

Go for the Decent, then 2 years later you can sell it pretty good and go for the Slayer again a bit later you should try a Speedster and try them all, it never gets boring