New machine €1000 budget

zweton

Just wanted some opinions on these two, a sage bambino plus and seperate sage grinder or the Oscar 2 ?

https://northxsouth.ie/products/sage-bambino-plus-espresso-coffee-machine-black-truffle

https://northxsouth.ie/collections/coffee-grinders/products/sage-the-smart-grinder-pro-coffee-grinder-bcg820bssuk

cnocbui

zweton wrote: »

Just wanted some opinions on these two, a sage bambino plus and seperate sage grinder or the Oscar 2 ?

Has anyone used either of these? Are they two good options?

I have owned neither. I had a look at the Sage machines when I was last on the hunt.

For me personally. it would be no contest, in favour of the Oscar II. I'd buy a grinder from a company that makes grinders and has a track record doing it.

Having said that, It would also depend on the price of the Oscar 2. I'd hapily get another QuickMill, Lelit, or the like, if the price/quality seemed better at the time.

zweton

hmmm its here for 678...

https://www.coffeeitalia.ie/nuova-simonelli-oscar-ii-black.html

cnocbui

Even cheaper with a bank transfer.

That seems to be a bargain given it's $1,620-$1,925 in the US.

Squidgy Black

Just be warned coffeeitalia has a pretty bad rep in terms of customer service if something does go wrong, I think there's a fair few posts on here about them and their antics.

But yeah the Oscar II is a different ballgame completely to any of the Sage products unless you step up to their dual boiler.

Mr Magnolia

Stay WELL away from coffeeitalia.

wilsixon

cnocbui wrote: »

.
He reminds me of HiFi audio geeks who believe in cables and wires having special audible properties.

If he or anyone can point me to a proper paper based on experiments with 3D ultrasound images showing channeling in coffee mud

He makes excellent coffee (world champion barista), and seems to be driven by what actually acheives that - his own set up is simple, and he has shown form in debunking some brewing myths. So your hifi analogy is off the mark.

I can't point you to 3D ultrasound images, but I can compare results of before/after pressure mod made on this machine. At 15 bar I often experienced channelling problems. It's very easy to visuallly identify in the puck afterwards. Coffee was evenly distributed and well tamped - same method I use now. But since the mod, at 9 bar no issues with channelling.

Better shots. That's my real world experience.

So for a simple and cheap mod, it's a no brainer.

Hodors Appletart

There will always be contrarians.

cnocbui

Hodors Appletart wrote: »

There will always be contrarians.

Science, medicine and many other fields of human endeavour are mostly advanced by contrarians.