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Permalink Reply by Peter Milne on October 25, 2010 at 8:34pm

Interesting, I might have a Viva Reneka for that price range. Still thinking on it.

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Permalink Reply by olivier dutil on October 25, 2010 at 8:42pm

well it is just a little bit hard with the border. i am in canada

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Permalink Reply by Peter Milne on October 25, 2010 at 8:45pm

Well, I'm 100 miles from the border. :)

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Permalink Reply by olivier dutil on October 26, 2010 at 8:59am

alberta or britsh columbia border?

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Permalink Reply by Peter Milne on October 26, 2010 at 9:01am

Just west of Crowsnest, into BC. South of Fernie into MT.

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Permalink Reply by olivier dutil on October 26, 2010 at 9:11am

does you machine work on 110/120?

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Permalink Reply by Peter Milne on October 26, 2010 at 9:17am

110v 20A

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Ayers on October 26, 2010 at 9:35am

While I don't have any personal experience with it, I have noticed that the Alex Duetto by izzo seems pretty darn cool, and is less than half the price of a gs3.

http://www.chriscoffee.com/products/home/espresso/izzoduetto

Dual boilers, and a sweet PID kit to boot make this seem like quite a bargain compared to gs3 pricing. Also I have had nothing but positive experiences with Chris coffee.

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Permalink Reply by olivier dutil on October 26, 2010 at 9:43am

this alex look sweet aswell!!! thanks for the feed back on the gs3

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Permalink Reply by Mike McGinness on October 26, 2010 at 10:06am

While researching your home machine highly advice spending research time on Home-Barista. You'll find people with of the most advanced home setups on earth (GS3's, Speedsters, Roburs etc.) to basic beginner home espresso setups and everything inbetween. Copious experiece and knowledge base just about any prosumer model known.

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Permalink Reply by Clark Pittman on October 26, 2010 at 7:30pm

Hey Olivier. I second the Alex Duetto by izzo. I have one, my first real espresso machine. (My previous one was a super-auto, a Capresso S9 I think.) I also agree with the Home-Barista.com suggestion. The Duetto's double boiler makes things simple and consistent, so you can dial those great shots in much more quickly than if you had to learn a machine's surfing characteristics. I'm not a pro-barista by any stretch, although I've worked a bit with some of the best multi-group Hx machines at ABC's Business&Barista program, and the Duetto lets me pull really nice shots with little fuss. It's almost twice the price you have indicated however. Also, I've only had it for 11 months so I can not address its longer term reliability, but so far I've had no problems other than the PID controller resetting itself a couple of times, and that's most likely due to my failure to place the machine on a surge protector- necessary with our "dirty" rural power lines. I do wish it had a bit more steam power, but I didn't know I wanted more until I used the big boys. Good luck with your search!

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Permalink Reply by ryan mcdougall on December 7, 2010 at 8:49am

I've got a simoneli oscar for 900. It's a pretty decent machine, I have a customer that uses one for corporate catering with a pretty large volume and he loves it. I tested the boiler by opening the steam valve for 5 minutes. I had full pressure steam for about 3 minutes and very slightly lower pressure for 2 minutes. When I shut it off it took less than 45 seconds for it to return to full pressure. It's brand new in the box. pm me your email address if interested. I can't send messages on here for some reason.

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