5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
The Good and Bad about loving Miss Silvia
Date of Review: Feb 1, 2008
The Bottom Line: The best espresso machine you can buy for the money. If you want real barrista quality, this machine puts it all in your control.
I have owned this machine for 3 wonderful years, and this is by far the best machine for the money bar none except for maybe a Gaggia machine. After many years of buying the cheap sub-quality well known brand name machines from Braun, Krups, and Briel we deceided to invest in a better machine. The Rancillio Miss Silvia takes quite a commitment to master, but once you have you will never purchase another espresso drink again! Beware, you might have trouble finding somewhere to grind you beans properly unless you purchase the only home grinder that will work with this machine, the Rancillio Rocky. But, guests will marvel at how incredible the cappuccino is you just served them after dinner.
Problem areas include the painted steel of the body that is not corrosion resistant and is now rusting from the constant moisture collected in the drip tray. The drip tray itself is a low-cost stainless steel that is rusting at the weld joints. Today my machine actually stopped working (ie: lost power) no power, nothing no matter what I tried. I called the extremely good customer service at the merchant I purchased it from online and they said I could look inside for something obvious, or send it back in to get fixed by their service department. The only recourse now is to find someone to fix it, which could take 3-4 weeks unless I try to do it myself. Please note that no matter how good a machine is and how much you spend on it, there is always the chance that it will stop working sooner than you expected.
