The Best Espresso Machine Under £1,500

0:00- Welcome to today's video.

0:01Today, we're going to be looking

0:02for the best espresso machine under £1500.

0:05Now in the past, we've done under £100, under £500.

0:09There wasn't actually a lot at the £1000 point

0:11so we jumped all the way to 1500

0:13and if you haven't seen those other videos,

0:15they'll be up here and in the description.

0:16Check 'em out too if you're shopping

0:17for a new espresso machine.

0:19Now, these machines were picked

0:20through a poll of my Patreon supporters.

0:22There's lots of choices but these are, I think,

0:24a great selection of what's out there.

0:26They're all pretty available worldwide,

0:27they're all very popular choices and I can't wait

0:29to see how they stack up against one another.

0:32Let me walk you through

0:33what we've got here and what they cost.

0:35First up is the Lelit MaraX.

0:37This is the cheapest of the machines at £999

0:39so just scraping in under £1,000

0:42then we have the Rocket Appartamento,

0:44another popular choice at £1,225.

0:47Next up is the Profitec Pro 500,

0:49the most expensive machine today at £1,399

0:54and then we move into the Rancilio Silvia Pro, £1,320,

0:59and on the end, the Sage or Breville Dual Boiler at £1,199.

1:05These three machines, all heat exchanger machines.

1:08They have a single boiler inside them that produces steam

1:10and very hot water and that heat is exchanged

1:13into brew water on its way to the group.

1:15They have what are called E61 style group heads

1:18where you control the machine

1:20with a little lever on the front.

1:21If you lift it up a little bit,

1:23it will allow water to flow from the group head,

1:25lift it all the way and it engages the pump

1:27and you will get your nine bars of pressure.

1:29This technology is named

1:30after the E61 released in 1961 by Faema

1:33and it's still a very popular technology today.

1:35These two machines are both dual boiler technology

1:38where you have a separate boiler to heat your brewing water

1:41and then a boiler just for steam and hot water,

1:43you might want to take off for tea

1:45or an Americano or something like that.

1:46Generally speaking, you know you can control the temperature

1:48of your brew water independently of your steam pressure

1:51with a dual boiler so if you want a hotter brew temperature,

1:53you don't have to increase your steam pressure

1:55or vice versa, you can have cooler brew temperature

1:57without losing steam power.

1:59Here, with the heat exchanger, your brew temperature

2:01and your steam pressure are interlinked

2:03so if you want a cooler brew temp,

2:05you lose steam pressure as your kind of trade-off.

2:08Now these machines will be used sort of factory set.

2:11I've not opened to the inside of them up at all.

2:13Anything that I've changed

2:14would be changed through programming.

2:15I might have changed their brew temperature

2:17through a control on the front of the machine

2:19but I'm not going to get inside them at all

2:21because that's not really the point of this today.

2:22One other quick change,

2:23they're all going to use the same basket.

2:25I've taken their stock baskets out

2:26for the sake of sort of ease,

2:28they're all using a VST 18 gram basket

2:30when I come to do shot tests and that kind of stuff,

2:32it just makes evaluating the machine that little bit easier.

2:35I would say in almost every case,

2:37I would get rid of the stock basket and replace it

2:39with a VST or similar pretty early on so that's what I did.

2:42Otherwise, they are as stock sort of factory set.

2:44Here's how the review is going to work,

2:45we're going to break it down into some sections.

2:47Firstly, we're going to talk through the build

2:49and the aesthetics and some of the features

2:50of each of the machines then we'll talk a little bit more

2:53about sort of brewing espresso with each of these machines,

2:56how they perform, how the shots taste,

2:58then we'll do a little bit of steaming tests, right?

2:59How quickly do they steam milk?

3:01Do they produce a good texture?

3:02And at the end of all of that,

3:04I'll come back here, I'll wrap up,

3:05and I'll tell you which one I think is the best.

3:10So let's start with the Rocket Appartamento,

3:12the first of the heat exchangers,

3:13the E61 machines, and talk about how it looks.

3:16And I think of the machines here,

3:17actually it looks pretty good.

3:19I like the detailing that they have on the side panel here,

3:22I think that gives the machine some character.

3:24I think sort of size-wise, feel-wise, it feels compact,

3:27doesn't feel too big but it also doesn't feel

3:29particularly cluttered in that regard.

3:31Obviously, there's a lot of stainless steel here

3:34and that is good from a sort of premium feel perspective,

3:36bad from a fingerprint and polishing perspective,

3:39there's a lot to keep clean here,

3:41but it does feel solid, substantial and well-made.

3:45I'll say also as a little detail, I quite like the feet,

3:47they've done a good job here.

3:48Feet are not always done well, I quite like the feet.

3:51Styling-wise, you know, with the E61 machines,

3:54there's a lot of similarities.

3:55The little details

3:56around the steam wand valve are kind of nice.

3:58Now, let's talk about the kind

3:59of usability piece of it as well.

4:01And I'll start with a little bit

4:02of a weird complaint and that is the portafilter.

4:06The portafilter comes with some spouts in a weird position.

4:09I really don't like it

4:11when you have spouts facing forwards like this,

4:13they should be to the back.

4:15Now what's weird in the manual,

4:16they appear in both configurations,

4:18sort of spouts fronts, spouts back, I dunno.

4:20I also don't particularly

4:21like the little shield cover-y bits that they put on here.

4:23It just makes a really important piece harder to clean.

4:25So this just annoys me, it's clearly supposed

4:28to be this way, it shows it this way round in the manual

4:30but it's just, it's just wrong.

4:31It makes you push the cups right

4:33to the back and I just don't like it.

4:35As for the rest of the machine, well,

4:37there's not actually that much you interact with.

4:39You have a very standard E61 control lever,

4:42you know, you have an open position

4:44that allows liquid to pass through,

4:46you lift to engage the pump and close again

4:50and that's your primary point of interaction

4:52and with all of the heat exchanger machines,

4:54it's the same point of interaction.

4:56It is a little cluttered.

4:58Right at the back here, you've got your hot water tap

5:00and spout, it's not, I don't like it.

5:04It's just cluttered in here,

5:06it's not nice from the usability perspective,

5:08tons of space on the side for the steam wand.

5:09Beyond that, well there aren't really any other controls

5:13that you're supposed to interact with.

5:15With this machine, you have no direct way

5:17of controlling the temperature of the steam boiler

5:19which therefore impacts the temperature

5:20of your brew water through the heat exchange

5:22so you kind of get what you're given.

5:24Similarly pressure from the vibration pump.

5:26Yes, there's an over pressure valve

5:27but to adjust that involves,

5:29you know, getting inside the machine

5:31and doing some maintenance work

5:32that technically would invalidate your warranty.

5:34It's not really a consumer-facing part of the machine,

5:36something you can change or adjust easily.

5:38So really it's kind of on-off, open or closed,

5:42that's your interaction with this machine

5:44and from the simplicity perspective, that's not bad.

5:46I don't mind a simple machine but a little bit more control

5:50would be desirable, especially at this price point.

5:52One more piece of usability and this will come up again

5:54and again with the heat exchanger machines

5:56in particular, it's heat up time.

5:58This is at least a 30 minute heat up time

6:00to have everything fully up to temperature

6:02and that's a long time.

6:03It's a machine where I would want

6:05to have it come on in an automated way

6:07well in advance of me wanting to make coffee.

6:09If I get up, I want coffee and then I have

6:10to go and switch it on, that's frustrating.

6:12That's too long a time

6:13between desire for coffee and getting coffee

6:16so the 30 plus minute heat up time

6:17for me is a bit of a negative.

6:19Last thing to talk about before we sort of talk about,

6:22you know, the next machine and then we talk

6:23about making coffee later is gauges.

6:25This has just one, this has a steam pressure gauge

6:28and that's it, you really don't know what's going on

6:30with things like pump pressure,

6:32you just know how hot your steam boiler is

6:34and you can sort of deduct-ish,

6:36are you at temperature for your brew boiler?

6:37But really there's not a lot of insight

6:39into what's happening in the machine,

6:41especially when you're brewing.

6:42One nice feature though

6:43increasingly common across the machines,

6:45it is a cool touch steam wand.

6:47(steam hisses)

6:49So from a safety perspective, that's kind of nice,

6:51though obviously the very tip here does get very hot.

6:53So the Lelit MaraX is the smallest of the footprints

6:57of the machines we have here today

6:58and that is very likable, right?

7:00The more you can get into a smaller footprint,

7:02frankly the better.

7:03What's interesting to me is

7:04where it doesn't compromise, right?

7:06It's no more kind of cluttered around the group head

7:08than any of the other heat exchanger machines.

7:10It still suffers the same level of clutter

7:12where your brew activating lever is close

7:15to your hot water tap but it feels like the other machines

7:18are just wider past these points,

7:20rather than having these things further away

7:22in a kind of notable way anyway.

7:24So tons of stainless steel, feels well-made,

7:27well-built, looks relatively neat.

7:29I won't say it's proportions

7:30are truly aesthetically pleasing, something about it

7:33just feels a bit disproportionate in a funny sort of way.

7:35It doesn't feel, maybe it's just a bit too tall,

7:37I can't quite work it out

7:38but it doesn't kind of feel quite balanced

7:40in its design but that's a very personal thing

7:41so you may feel totally different to me.

7:44What it doesn't do well is feet, it has bad feet.

7:46Very small little rubber feet under here.

7:47It's almost impossible

7:48to get your fingers underneath the machine.

7:50If you want to lift it and move it,

7:51that's extremely awkward.

7:53Don't drag it, which I did.

7:54The little rubber feet pop off

7:55at the back and that's kind of annoying

7:57but once it's in place, you should be fine, right?

8:01From a sort of user interface perspective,

8:03you have a couple of lights.

8:04You've got a up to temperature or a heating light

8:06and you've got a hot water level light,

8:08let you know if your tanks running empty

8:09or if your machine is heating up,

8:11obviously your main power switch.

8:12There is one more switch.

8:13(drip tray rattles)

8:16And we'll talk about the drip tray in a second.

8:18Under here, there's a switch

8:19with three positional settings, zero, one and two,

8:22and that's for low, medium and high temperatures.

8:25It being a heat exchanger, this temperature setting

8:27for your brew temperature will impact your steam pressure

8:29so know that going to the highest temperature

8:32will yield very high pressures of steam,

8:34thing to bear in mind.

8:35In my testing, the low temperature seemed

8:38to be in the region of sort of 85 to 87, maybe 88,

8:41and the high temperature roundabout 92

8:44with a little variation depending on how you were using it,

8:47how you were flushing it, that kind of a thing.

8:49If I was brewing lighter roasts, I would want to be at high.

8:51If I was brewing medium to dark roast,

8:52I would want to be at medium to low temperatures.

8:55So I like that, you know,

8:56there is some control of a brew temperature.

8:58It's a little simplistic, it's a little brute force,

9:01but ultimately, truth be told,

9:02I think the changes you would need to make

9:04to brew temperature to see a substantial impact on flavor

9:07also need to be pretty brute force, pretty big changes

9:10so I don't actually have a problem with that.

9:13I dislike the lack of transparency

9:15in terms of what exactly am I doing?

9:17What am I getting?

9:18But as a solution, you know, for the money, it's not bad.

9:22Now we do have to talk about the portafilter design

9:24for the Lelit 'cause it is very strange.

9:27You'll see here the splitter

9:29on this portafilter is an unusual shape.

9:31Now the upside is that as you're brewing,

9:34the espresso kind of falls out towards you.

9:36The downside is you've added quite a long path

9:38of travel in the portafilter,

9:40I don't think for really much in the way of a benefit.

9:42It's more to clean, it's not particularly easy to clean.

9:45I just find it a kind of weird design.

9:47I suspect some people really like it,

9:49I just find it a bit odd

9:51but as with the other heat exchangers,

9:52that's the sort of beginning and end

9:54of your interaction with the machine.

9:55You've got your two valves,

9:56your steam and your hot water, and your brew lever

9:59and that's really day to day.

10:00how you're going to interact with this thing,

10:02how you're going to use it.

10:03On top, there's a little space on your cup warmer

10:05for some cups, as many as you might need at home I suspect,

10:08so for me, while it is a compact machine,

10:10that's enough space on top for me to be pretty happy.

10:14From an information perspective,

10:15last thing to note is that this machine

10:17does have two gauges which is good.

10:18You have a steam pressure gauge

10:19and you have a brew pressure gauge.

10:21The brew pressure gauge is kind of interesting,

10:23in that it seems to show you a little bit more

10:25of what's happening inside the brew chamber

10:28than other brew pressure gauges often do.

10:30Often, you would put a Scace in

10:32and you would see nine bars on a gauge

10:34and maybe eight bars in the group head.

10:36Here, what you see on the gauge

10:38is much closer to what you see on the Scace gauge

10:40which is kind of interesting.

10:41This running a little high for me,

10:43higher than I would want based on this sort of information,

10:46I would want the gauge to show more like eight bars

10:48and again, it's an OPV so you're going

10:50to go in and do sort of the hard work

10:51of adjusting an over-pressure valve

10:53that is awkward and frustrating

10:54to get exactly what you want

10:56so from that point of view, a little annoying,

10:58but to have the information is kind of nice.

11:00And as you'll note as we talk about espresso

11:02in a little bit, the way it comes up

11:04to pressure is kind of interesting too.

11:06Anyway, that's the interaction with the Lelit MaraX.

11:10So the Rancilio Silvia Pro,

11:12obviously based on the very popular Rancilio Silvia,

11:15probably the most modified domestic

11:18espresso machine in the world.

11:18I suspect there's more PID kits running

11:20on Rancilio Silvias than anything else

11:23and this feels like a response to that.

11:25You know, the users were fixing aspects of a machine,

11:28Rancilio fixed it themselves.

11:30So they did a dual boiler, this is it

11:32and it's a lot like it's just a lot, it feels very big.

11:37As a machine, it does feel like it lacks

11:40just a little bit in the way of elegance.

11:42It feels like a kind of brute force solution here

11:44and that's from the size and the shape kind of throughout.

11:47Now I have a couple of little complaints

11:49on the sort of user experience side of things,

11:52some things that quite make sense to me.

11:54There are things that I like though.

11:55But let's start with the rocker switches on the front.

11:58Now these are similar than you would find in the Silvia.

12:00They don't act in a uniform way

12:01and that kind of bothers me.

12:02The main on-off switch as you'll see,

12:04it's off, it's on, up and down,

12:06that's how a rocker switch works.

12:07All the other switches don't do that, they bounce.

12:11Now the rocker switch I just hit is the steam function

12:13and on a Rancilio Silvia, on a normal Rancilio Silvia,

12:16that heats the machine up to a sort of higher temperature

12:19so you can get steam out of it.

12:20Here, it just turns off the steam boiler,

12:22which is kind of interesting as a solution.

12:24You know, if you don't want to steam milk,

12:26then don't heat up a steam boiler.

12:27You've got a dual boiler,

12:28you can just heat the coffee boiler.

12:30I think that's a nice touch,

12:31though it's kind of a weird use of a button

12:33that has an existing kind of design language

12:35in coffee machines, I don't know, it's just kind of weird.

12:37Same again actually with the shot button, right?

12:39If you start to pull a shot,

12:40if you turn it on, it bounces back up.

12:42Obviously you can hear the machine is running.

12:44(machine whirs)

12:47But why doesn't the button stay down?

12:49Just stay down, be on or off.

12:51I just find it a really weird behavior for the switches.

12:54On here, you do have your control box.

12:56Again, it's not hidden the way it is

12:58in other machines, it's front and center.

12:59The upside of that is that it works

13:01as a shot timer while you're pulling shots

13:02so that's a nice use of that,

13:04otherwise it shows you the live temperature

13:06of the boiler of the machine.

13:08There are more functions in here,

13:09they're not hugely intuitive in my experience.

13:13Like there is a sort of program to shut down and wake up

13:15but you're programming how many hours

13:17until the machine wakes up again.

13:18You don't program a clock and say wake up at 7:00 AM,

13:21you say, wake up in 23 hours or something.

13:24I find that a little odd,

13:26a kind of reasonable usage of a key pad

13:28to do a little bit more in terms

13:29of functionality but I don't think

13:31that's superb user interface design if I'm totally honest.

13:34My only other real significant complaints

13:36around this side of stuff is around the drip tray actually

13:38and this there's two things.

13:39They've kind of brute forced another solution

13:41which is you can change the height of the drip tray.

13:43In here, there are these pieces on the side

13:47that sort of vaguely lock into place

13:48with little locking wheels

13:50and you can change the height of them.

13:52(machine parts rattle)

13:53Let me just do this now.

13:55Oh, there we go, so let's drop it all the way down

13:57and now my drip tray will sit lower

13:59when I put it back on there, right?

14:02Little bit lower down.

14:03It works, okay, I don't think

14:06it's a particularly elegant design if I'm honest, right?

14:09Like it's a little bit brute forced in a way,

14:11like it works, it's okay, it's kind of useful I guess.

14:13Again, if you were using this as a pure espresso machine,

14:16you would want this higher up you know,

14:18you don't need to put a big mug underneath

14:19but if you're doing a big milk drink, that's an option.

14:22That's a smaller complaint than my larger complaint

14:24which is the decision to put a lip here, right?

14:28Because you can't see how full the actual drain tray is

14:32underneath the drip tray grid here, right?

14:33So if it got very full, you wouldn't see

14:35until it was potentially too late and if it was very full,

14:38you've got a problem because I can't,

14:40you know, gingerly slide this out, I have to lift it.

14:43I have to lift it up to that angle to get it out

14:46and if that's full, that's going to make a terrible mess.

14:50That is a really weird design choice to me.

14:52I do not understand it, it's incredibly frustrating.

14:56I think it's a bad design decision if I'm honest

14:58because I could foresee someone

14:59making a terrible mess of their kitchen counter

15:01by accidentally having a very full drip tray

15:03and trying to find a way to get it out.

15:05You can't just lift it straight up

15:07'cause it's stuck underneath here.

15:10Very frustrating.

15:11So let's have a little look at the Profitec Pro 500

15:14and it is our most expensive machine.

15:15And if you look at it, it's a lot of stainless steel,

15:17it's a lot of uninterrupted, shiny,

15:20fingerprint-attracting stainless steel.

15:22I think it looks quite nice.

15:23I think the build is quite nice, it's quite boxy

15:25and if that's your vibe then you're probably

15:27really quite into this but yeah,

15:29it feels substantial, it feels spacious.

15:31It feels the closest to a kind of pro machine in some ways,

15:34certainly of the three E61 style machines.

15:37Few things to talk about in terms of the externals.

15:39Firstly, the water tank sits

15:41underneath this entire tray, right?

15:43So you need to lift off your cups and everything else

15:47to sort of get into your water tank.

15:48It makes for a bigger cup warming tray,

15:51a more functional cup warming tray,

15:52but it is also just a bit weird as an experience.

15:55I'll say it again, I've said it lots of times;

15:57from a user perspective, the clutter around the brew handle

16:00and the hot water tap is the same,

16:02it's the same frustration.

16:03There's a little bit more space between these two valves,

16:06there's a little bit more width to the machine

16:08but it's a centimeter or two compared to the others

16:10so it's still relatively crowded.

16:12Now the Profitec being the most expensive,

16:14it is, of the heat exchangers,

16:15the most feature-rich so on the front,

16:18you can see you've got your steam pressure gauge,

16:20you've got your brew pressure gauge so that's nice.

16:22Both are there, that's good,

16:23and then if you pull the drip tray out,

16:25here underneath, you've got your control for temperature.

16:28Now, as we've talked about before with a heat exchanger,

16:30you're controlling the temperature of the steam boiler

16:33so 126 degrees Celsius seems very high,

16:36obviously that's for steam and you'll lose heat

16:38in the heat exchange process so this is to produce, I think,

16:42somewhere in the region of like 94,

16:4495 degrees Celsius, which it mostly does.

16:46Programing this as an experience isn't lovely.

16:50I feel like it's slightly convoluted as a menu

16:53and not particularly intuitive but it works fine.

16:55They could have done the work in terms

16:57of giving you the option to just see your brew temperature

17:00and change that and algorithmically have them

17:02do the backend work of converting your desired brew temp

17:05to the correct steam boiler temperature.

17:06This is a little bit more simplistic

17:08and I think that's kind of a shame for the money,

17:10like I don't care what my steam water temperature is,

17:12I care about my brew boiler

17:14and I know it's not a direct correlation

17:15and you can't just offset it but still,

17:18that's not complicated maths, I don't think.

17:20That aside, it is nice to still have control

17:23over your temperatures and in your manual,

17:25and don't lose that, you would have a chart

17:27giving you the sort of conversion

17:30of steam temp to brew temp.

17:31Similar to the other machines,

17:33heat up times are very long, changes in temperature

17:36sort of coming through have been quite slow

17:39so again, it's one you'd want it on a timer

17:42in order to have this be hot and ready to go, you know,

17:45turning on 30 to 40 minutes before you want to make coffee.

17:48Again, it's a frustrating aspect of the user experience

17:51of these kind of machines.

17:52Feet, reasonable feet, certainly easy enough to move,

17:55lift up, deal with that kind of stuff.

17:57Not beautiful but certainly adequate.

17:59One quick note before we get into actually pulling a shot

18:02and talking about temperatures and pressures,

18:04I did have the single incidence

18:05of thermosiphon stall with this machine.

18:08Now I don't want to go too deep into this,

18:10it can happen to any heat exchanger machine.

18:12It's when the water stops cycling

18:14in the thermosiphon properly

18:15and your group head goes relatively cool.

18:18You need that movement of water happening constantly

18:20to maintain a temperature here.

18:22That didn't happen and I was getting shots

18:24in the sort of mid 80s in terms of brew temperature,

18:26flush through a bunch of water

18:28and it seemed to correct itself.

18:29I know other machines can suffer from this

18:32so it's not a particular, you know,

18:34negative for this one machine

18:35but I do want to point out the fact

18:36that it did happen and it can happen with heat exchangers.

18:39So let's talk about the Dual Boiler from Sage or Breville,

18:41depending where you are in the world

18:43and I think this machine is another great example

18:46of their particular approach to product design

18:49because from a sort of features perspective,

18:51it crushes the competition, right?

18:54Like on paper, the features here exceed everyone else

18:58and what do I mean by that?

18:59Well, you've obviously got a dual boiler,

19:01you've got control of your temperature to a degree Celsius.

19:04You've got a shot clock on here

19:05but you've got a clock on the machine as well

19:07so you can program your morning wake up or shut down

19:09so it's always hot and ready when you want to go.

19:11You can program pre-infusion in this machine,

19:13both its duration and its pressure.

19:15You can use this as a time-based delivery

19:17on the pre-program buttons

19:19or a volume based delivery on those buttons

19:21and I'll show you my one tiny little feature

19:23that I think is emblematic of their design,

19:25here, the little knob under the machine

19:28and you twist it, lifts up, oh, it moves around.

19:31How nice is that?!

19:32You know, it's a little detail, but it matters.

19:35And they do all this at what is kind of in the middle

19:37of the pricing for this thing, it's about £1200.

19:40Well, how?

19:40And the answer, very obviously, is build.

19:43Like these are all built out of metal,

19:44they're heavy, they're substantial.

19:46This...

19:47(tapping)

19:48Is not, you pick it up,

19:49it feels lightweight compared to everything else.

19:51It doesn't feel built with the same quality or,

19:56quality is not quite fair,

19:57the same kind of heaviness and weight of materials.

20:01It's not stainless steel everywhere,

20:03it's not that kind of a thing.

20:04If I was to describe those other four machines,

20:06I would use the phrase pro-sumer,

20:08that's quite a common word, you know,

20:09it's a professional consumer machine,

20:11it's sort of in that middle ground.

20:13This feels like a consumer machine,

20:16feels like a very nice consumer machine

20:17but it feels like a consumer machine.

20:19It feels like it's targeting a different audience.

20:22It's the only machine that tells me,

20:24"Don't put milk in the water tank."

20:26I don't know what you make of that

20:27but clearly that's happened often enough

20:29with their products that they needed to put it

20:31in writing where you fill the water tank.

20:33That just says they're targeting a different audience

20:35with less knowledge, less interest,

20:38less investment in espresso but they're still trying

20:41to build features that appeal to the espresso enthusiast

20:44and that's what makes it kind of interesting.

20:46Now one of the frustrations is

20:48that their portafilters are very slightly different.

20:51They're 58 ml portafilters so I'm using the same basket

20:53that I've used for all the others here,

20:55but the little lugs on the side here are a different size

20:58so I cannot put my Scace 2 into the machine

21:01to test its pressure and to test its brew temperature.

21:03There's various ways you can try and hack it,

21:05you know, you can put a little probe

21:06on top of a bed of coffee and sort of sneak it in

21:08and see what that's giving you.

21:10It's pretty much delivering on temperature,

21:11I don't have any concerns there.

21:13Pressure, I have to trust the gauge,

21:15and the gauge is telling me

21:16that the OPV is not set correctly.

21:18This thing will hit comfortably 10, 11 bars while brewing,

21:22you'll see that pressure decline during the shot

21:23as the sort of puck erodes or it creates channels

21:26in the puck and finds easier ways through

21:28but it should never hit those pressures in the first place.

21:31I don't want a machine brewing at that high of a pressure,

21:33I want the over pressure valve

21:34to bleed off pressures above nine bars.

21:37I know you're probably tired of me saying it

21:38but I'm also tired of saying it,

21:40like this is basics of good coffee brewing

21:43and I'm just very annoyed in four

21:46of the five machines tested

21:47to be raising the same point.

21:49Just to wrap on the sort of experience

21:51before we pull a shot, you know,

21:52it feels both quite substantial and quite compact,

21:56you know what I mean?

21:57Like it's not a small machine,

21:58it's not the smallest machine

22:00but it's not particularly deep

22:01and I think that matters to a lot of people

22:03and a lot of people's kitchens.

22:04It doesn't feel as compact as the Lelit over there,

22:07but they've done a good job of making it feel, you know,

22:10a nice balance between substantial and small enough.

22:13You know, I don't think the space saving stuff

22:15about putting a tool storage tray here

22:18is particularly useful.

22:19I don't want to be pulling my drip tray in and out,

22:21but you know, they're trying and I appreciate that.

22:27So now, we're into talking about making espresso

22:30and we are back to the Rocket Appartamento.

22:32Now my experience with this has been kind of mixed.

22:35I've quite liked the coffee coming out of here,

22:38though it isn't brewing in a way

22:40that I would really want it to.

22:42Once I put a Scace device into here,

22:44I began to understand why

22:45and primarily it's because of pressure

22:48so let's have a look at the brew pressure.

22:50145 PSI on a Scace 2 means that the pump

22:54is producing probably something closer to 160 PSI,

22:57that's nearly 13 bars of pressure.

22:59I don't want to see 13 bars of pressure at the pump,

23:02I want to see nine bars of pressure at the pump

23:04and once you accommodate losses,

23:06I want to see like 110, 115 PSI something there

23:10on a Scace 2 like this for a nine bar pump.

23:12Higher than that and I will have some additional bitterness

23:15in my experience and a much higher likelihood

23:17of channeling in my shots.

23:20That's to me unacceptable in a factory shipped unit.

23:23This should have been fixed at factory,

23:24I have no idea why the pump is running this high.

23:26Yeah, I can mod the OPV but I shouldn't have to.

23:30Brew temperatures ranged from sort of 92 to 94,

23:33which was pretty good and they were generally pretty stable.

23:36Occasionally, a little slow to recover after pulling a shot,

23:38you know, before you get the next shot

23:40and a little drop in temperature but overall,

23:42no real complaints about brew temperature.

23:45Let's pull a shot.

23:46(machine whirs)

23:51Not a bad shot, you know what I mean?

23:53It would be better at a lower pump pressure,

23:55I would enjoy it more and it would make

23:57making espresso easier for me

23:59because I'd have less issues

24:00with things like channeling most likely

24:02but it strikes me as a capable machine

24:04that would need a few little tweaks to really perform

24:06at its best, from an espresso brewing perspective.

24:09Obviously, now the heat exchangers have a shot timer

24:11because of the nature of how you turn on

24:13and off the grip with that kind of lever,

24:15I suppose it could be done

24:16but none of them have that function

24:17so you'd want to use a scale or something else for timing,

24:20which from an espresso brewing perspective

24:22is not truly ideal but it's certainly workable

24:24in most situations so I would say a capable machine.

24:27The only thing I would be aware of is

24:29if I was brewing lots of different styles of coffee,

24:31I was brewing light roasts, dark roasts,

24:32that kind of stuff, I would be frustrated

24:34that I couldn't tune my brew temperature

24:36around my coffees, right?

24:37Like that would be a frustration.

24:39Yes, you could run a different heat exchange routine,

24:41you could flush more water out,

24:42cool the group head down and try and go that way

24:44but it's a difficult thing to be accurate with.

24:47I would much rather have a machine

24:48where I could program my desired temperature

24:50and have the machine take care of the difficult stuff.

24:52Good shots, could it be better with a little tweak

24:54but certainly capable as a machine and for, you know,

24:57producing great espresso.

24:58So pulling shots with the Lelit, interesting experience.

25:02Let's have a look at brew pressure quickly.

25:04(machine whirs)

25:09Now this is a really slow ramp up to pressure.

25:13(steam hisses)

25:18Now you can see on the gauge here, just above nine bars

25:22and here, just above nine bars here too.

25:25Now, you know, based on this,

25:27it's running about a bar and a half higher

25:29than I would want it to run but it's interesting

25:31to see the similarities between the two gauges,

25:34that is definitely interesting.

25:35So brew temperature wise, as we said,

25:37generally it's been around 92, give or take a degree-ish.

25:41Certainly for me, a nice place to be brewing espresso

25:43and it's performed actually quite consistently

25:45shot to shot which I have liked about this.

25:48Let's make an espresso now.

25:50(machine whirs)

25:58The espresso has been very good,

25:59brew temperature is good, brew pressure has been high,

26:01and you can taste that, again, it's that same sort of thing

26:04where you have this additional kind of layer

26:05of bitterness that you don't necessarily want

26:07or shouldn't really be there.

26:09Having this very slow ramp up to pressure,

26:11it means you can grind much finer

26:13and you know shots have had relatively high yields

26:15and very good extractions from that point of view,

26:18potential channeling aside, it's made nice coffee.

26:21It's set up so the temperature is kind of

26:23where I want it to be, it's just frustrating

26:25that again from factory, it's not right

26:28in terms of pressure, it's running too high,

26:29it's running higher than I would want

26:31and that really, really frustrates me.

26:33It really annoys me.

26:34I don't want to have to fix that problem.

26:36It should not be on the consumer to fix that problem.

26:39So lots to like about this,

26:42especially at its price point compared

26:43to the others here but frustrating

26:46that it lets itself down in these little ways.

26:48Let's talk about some good things though.

26:50Now, this machine is unusual when it comes to temperatures

26:53and pressures in that it does

26:55what it's supposed to do right out of the box, right?

26:57Compared to the others here, that's kind of surprising.

27:00You get the temperature you expect from the gauge here

27:03and it brews at the right pressures.

27:05Let's have a look.

27:06(machine whirs)

27:09So what was kind of interesting there was

27:11that the programming was set to 94,

27:1393 was on the screen indicating it was a little bit cool,

27:16but actually brew temperature

27:17suggests no, it was in the 94 range.

27:20Pump pressure's about 150 in PSI,

27:22indicating it's probably 130 PSI at pump,

27:25nine bars, eight sort of measured

27:27in a flowing working group head as you would want.

27:31So from that perspective,

27:33it's doing what it's supposed to do

27:35and that is shockingly surprising

27:38at this point when it really shouldn't be.

27:40You know, points here, it's the temperature I want,

27:42it's the pressure I want, let's make some coffee.

27:45(machine whirs)

27:47The espresso has been very good.

27:49It's been as good as the coffee I've put in

27:50and the grinder that I've used to grind it, right?

27:53Like a good espresso machine

27:54should kind of become almost invisible,

27:56it just reliably delivers the temperature

27:58and pressure that you want.

27:59If it's distributing water properly

28:00onto the puck then any complaints

28:02with the shot you have really should be pointed elsewhere

28:05in the whole kind of process.

28:06So from an espresso perspective, it is a solid performer,

28:09I have no real complaints at all.

28:11Stop me if you've heard this one before,

28:12but the pressure on this machine runs too high.

28:15We're getting pretty much 10 bars on the gauge,

28:17we're seeing at least nine bars in the group,

28:20it's at least a bar too high for me.

28:22I don't really have a good explanation

28:23as to why other than it just wasn't properly set at factory.

28:27This is going to be a theme it seems

28:28that comes up again and again and again.

28:31Let's make some espresso.

28:32(machine whirs)

28:34Now, espresso from this has generally been good.

28:37I have no real complaints,

28:38the higher brew temp works for me.

28:40The shots have tasted a little bit high pressure-y

28:42and I wish the pump was running lower from factory,

28:44that would make the shots better.

28:46Again, it's not super difficult

28:49to go in the back and do an OPV adjustment,

28:51I just don't want to have to do it.

28:52I don't think I should be expected to do it

28:53to have an optimally functioning machine,

28:55especially for this kind of money.

28:57But overall, no real complaints.

29:00Performance sort of back-to-back has been okay.

29:03You know, with all the heat exchangers really,

29:05if you go too hard, too much sort of throughput for them,

29:08they will decline in temperature

29:10but under normal usage for homes,

29:13I've certainly had no issue.

29:14It's another very capable machine

29:16but it's not necessarily making better espresso

29:19than any of the other heat exchangers so to speak,

29:21like I think they are all making very good espresso,

29:24relatively easily.

29:25Now it's interesting to look at this machine

29:27with some context of previous machines we've looked at.

29:29If you go back to the previous comparison review,

29:31the £500 review, we had the Breville Bambino Plus

29:35and that felt in some ways more advanced than this machine

29:38with the one exception with that machine,

29:40that you had very little control over brew temperature

29:43and you didn't have a 58 ml basket.

29:44Here you do and that sort of makes it

29:47a more espresso-focused machine

29:49but the rest of it in terms of how it steams

29:51or that kind of stuff just doesn't feel

29:53as up-to-date as that particular machine,

29:55which just is I think worth noting.

29:57But let's make some espresso.

29:59(machine whirs)

30:01So you catch the slow ramp

30:02at seven seconds up to full pressure

30:04so you've got seven seconds pre-infusion.

30:06(machine whirs)

30:12And then straight up to 10 and a half bars.

30:14Dropping now to nine and a half...

30:18Dropping down to nine.

30:20(machine whirs)

30:25That's kind of weird.

30:28You've seen me use this machine

30:29on this channel a bunch of times in the past.

30:31It can make great espresso.

30:33It again just bothers me that I'm just so close

30:36to what I want but I'm not there.

30:38Again, the shots taste that little bit harsher

30:40than I would want with this pressure configuration.

30:42Now on the other machines here

30:44on the sort of four pro-sumer machines,

30:46you can see nuts and bolts and screws

30:48and places to get into the machine

30:50and there's a sort of subtext of

30:52you may wish to open this machine and get inside.

30:54That's not how this looks and feels.

30:56There are no screws anywhere that you can see.

30:58The message is do not open me but people do and have

31:01and they've modded these machines and fixed OPVs

31:03or done what's called the Slayer pressure mod

31:05that's not for today's video

31:07but interesting that you can modify this machine

31:09in a bunch of interesting ways.

31:10And stop me if you've heard this one before,

31:12I shouldn't have to do it, I should not have to spend £1200

31:16and then be tweaking things like pressure,

31:19that's not the way it should be.

31:20So I'm close to what I want.

31:22Temperature tastes good,

31:23I've had reliable temperature from it,

31:24I just want to fix that pressure issue

31:26but it's a capable machine when it comes

31:27to brewing good espresso.

31:29(relaxed piano and drum music)

31:54Steaming-wise, certainly quick enough for me.

31:57Steam was nice and easy to work with.

31:59It's a single whole steam tip

32:00but certainly very easy to work with,

32:02got some great texture,

32:04no real problems whatsoever with steaming,

32:05this steams very well.

32:07Now, steaming with the MaraX has been kind of interesting.

32:10Now I suspect it's to do with the way

32:12that this thing controls its temperature.

32:14It has two temperature probes,

32:15I presume one is in the steam boiler

32:16and one is in the thermosiphon

32:18and it's going to control the steam boiler

32:21to kind of regulate the thermosiphon temperature

32:23and that's meant that actually the steam pressure

32:26during operation has varied quite a lot,

32:28depending on what you're doing with your brew water too

32:30and that's been a bit of a surprise actually,

32:32useful to know, but a bit of a surprise.

32:34It's meant that I've had pretty high steam pressures

32:36and kind of middling steam pressures.

32:38Steaming with this is easy, texture has been great,

32:41like I have no complaints about it whatsoever

32:43but performance has varied a little bit,

32:45depending on where the steam boiler is sitting

32:47and that's just kind of odd to me, a little unusual.

32:51I'm not sure this is really a complaint

32:53because even at lower pressures,

32:55I've had enough steam to get nice texture,

32:57though I might wonder at higher pressures

32:58if it would be more difficult to control,

33:00just having that much more steam pressure.

33:02Overall, no real complaints just worth noting

33:04that that has been a strange one.

33:07To steam with, the Silvia Pro is lovely,

33:09very easy, tons of pressure, not too much flow

33:12so you've got lots of time to do what you need to do

33:14but enough force in the steam to have great texture

33:17in that kind of churning phase in the second half.

33:20It doesn't steam with the sort of aggression

33:22of a commercial machine, it still feels like you're steaming

33:24on a very nice domestic machine.

33:26Steaming with this is very nice actually.

33:28The tip on here restricts the steam flow enough

33:32that you have nice pressure but not excessive flow.

33:34That means that you have plenty

33:36of time to do what you need to do

33:37in terms of texturing and getting your sort of foam created

33:41and then rolled around nicely.

33:43Overall, steaming with this, very nice,

33:45no issues at higher temperatures.

33:47You know, I'm at 126 in the steam boiler,

33:49about a bar and a half of pressure

33:51but yeah, easy, easy to work with.

33:53To steam with, super good.

33:55Very easy, plenty of pressure, not too much flow

33:58so it's quite a slow process but it's easy.

34:00You've got time to do what you need to do,

34:02good at steaming milk.

34:05So let's wrap up.

34:05I'll give you a quick rundown of each of them,

34:08a quick summary of each of the machines

34:10and then I'll tell you which one I would buy

34:10if you gave me £1500 to spend.

34:13At the beginning, the Lelit MaraX I really quite liked.

34:16It's small, it's the cheapest of them here.

34:19You don't get fine temperature control

34:20but I think you get enough.

34:22It brews pretty good espresso.

34:23We'll not talk endlessly about pressure

34:25but it's kind of fine.

34:26I think it's a good value machine,

34:27I think at the price point it's out-competing something

34:30like the Rocket Appartamento.

34:31Here, I feel like this was a difficult bracket

34:33for this machine.

34:34It's well-built, it looks good,

34:36but it does not have the feature set of a cheaper machine

34:39or a very slightly more expensive one, right?

34:41It sort of sits at a difficult price point

34:43where I'm not sure, you know,

34:46other than maybe I've got a great deal on it

34:48or I have great support and after sales.

34:50You know, that might be a reason

34:51I would pick this over something else

34:53but the lack of temperature control

34:55is frustrating for me in this regard.

34:57The Profitec Pro 500.

34:59Of the machines, of the heat exchangers,

35:01it's the most expensive but I think the best performing.

35:02Most features, most useful, most usable.

35:05I thought this was a very well-made machine,

35:07I liked a lot about it, factory pressure aside.

35:10I wouldn't feel bad recommending this,

35:12it is a good machine and I think it looks nice,

35:14it feels nice, no real complaints outside

35:17of the whole pressure thing.

35:22it did what it was meant to do,

35:24it hit the temperatures, the pressures,

35:25it was easy to use, it makes great coffee,

35:27but the experience of it just frustrated me at times.

35:30The Sage, kind of the opposite.

35:32The experience is kind of great generally,

35:34all the features are wonderful,

35:35I think it's a good machine.

35:37I just wish it was doing

35:38what I wanted it to do a little bit more.

35:40But there's no question, if you're just looking at features,

35:43this destroys everything else.

35:45It has a better interface, it does more, it's more useful,

35:48it's just not built the same way as these.

35:50It doesn't feel as heavy, it doesn't feel as long lasting,

35:53it doesn't feel like a pro-sumer machine,

35:55it feels very much a consumer grade thing.

35:57And if that bothers you, that's going to be an issue, right?

36:00It doesn't feel like it's going

36:02to have the longevity of these other machines.

36:05Now that's just a feeling,

36:06I'm not saying it doesn't have the longevity,

36:08it's kind of an experiential aspect of the machine.

36:11When you interact with it, it feels lightweight

36:14in comparison to everything else.

36:15Now, in terms of what I would recommend.

36:18Well, firstly, if you have one of these machines,

36:20I'm not sure I'd recommend upgrading

36:22to another machine from this group.

36:23Maybe if you have a Rocket and you're frustrated

36:26by not being able to play with temperature easily,

36:28then you might consider something like this

36:30and upgrade but really you're not going

36:32to see a substantial improvement in your espresso, right?

36:35If you've got one of these,

36:36you've got a great capable machine.

36:38If you get those pressures dialed in,

36:39temperatures dialed in, you are very capable

36:43of producing incredibly good espresso

36:45if you've got a good grind.

36:47However, to answer the question

36:48of which would I buy with £1500,

36:50I would be torn between these two.

36:53I know this made better espresso

36:54and I'm not going to discount that fact,

36:56this did a really good job.

36:58The user experience of these is a little bit nicer.

37:00They're a little bit more attractive looking

37:03and depending on lifestyle and how I want to make espresso,

37:07these would be my pick but it's tough.

37:10And in truth, I'm a little disappointed

37:12across the entire bracket by the experience

37:15on offer at the price point.

37:16Now I know I often have more expensive equipment

37:18on here, right?

37:20I have, you know, £3,000, £5,000 machines

37:22and so is this unfair of me to have higher expectations

37:25of these at a lower price point?

37:27But the thing that bothers me is

37:29that the same components could do a better job

37:32if they were set up properly.

37:33And if that were the case,

37:35if they were all brewing beautifully from factory,

37:37oh, then I would really be torn between these two

37:39and it would be a difficult decision

37:41and it would be about after sales

37:42or getting a deal or who am I buying it from?

37:45What support will I get?

37:46You know, that kind of stuff,

37:47that would probably tip me over the edge one way or another

37:49or which one fit better into my kitchen.

37:51But that's my feeling.

37:53Now I'd like to hear from you down in the comments below.

37:56Do you have one of these?

37:58Did I miss an aspect of one of them

38:00that you think is worth talking about?

38:02Share it down in the comments below.

38:03Do you know why all of these machines are not set

38:06to the correct pressure except for this one?

38:08Am I missing something?

38:10Am I unfairly angry about this?

38:12Is there a really obvious reason that I just don't get,

38:15other than they just weren't set up properly?

38:16Let me know down in the comments below

38:18and if I've made a huge mistake,

38:20I will most definitely publish a retraction

38:22but I will say I'm frustrated but I'm curious,

38:25I'd love to hear your thoughts, your comments.

38:27Did we miss a machine?

38:29I don't know, I don't get to keep these machines.

38:30These go to my Patreon supporters

38:32who help me with this channel,

38:33allow me to go out and buy these things like a consumer

38:36and tell you my honest thoughts about them.

38:39I look forward to your feedback on this video

38:40but for now, I'll say thank you so much for watching