Hi, This is more of a question, as I have no problems with my coffee maker. I have the Cuisinart, DCC-1200 12 cup coffee maker, and am very pleased with it, One thing I'm not totally satisfied with, and it seems to be with coffee makers in general, is the amount of technical details about them, as in how they work, what technologies are used, how those technologies work etc. anyway, I have been experimenting with features, and last night I tried the 1-4 cup button, to see what the difference is, either way, the pot of water, or coffee is extremely hot. (usually i'll run a plain pot of water in testing) as not to waste coffee. One thing I noticed when the 1-4 cup button is on is this maker still brews all the water and makes a great pot, but it seems to brew slightly slower in 1-4 cup mode, but not enough to make an issue of or even rate the product poorly over. what I have noticed is, in regular mode, the water is a nice constant stream into the carafe, in 1-4 mode i'll get stream spurts if it's on a slower timer, I know it's not clogged, as it's new, and like i said regular mode and this mode work fine, it just seems to be timed differently. Is this normal to ensure a hotter brew and it's just a hidden detail of 1-4 cup mode ? i'm just curious. either way, the product works great, without issues.
The 1-4 cup setting actually loops the water through the heating element twice. It's a good wrokaround for people who like extremely hot coffee, but not for iced coffee fans like me.
-Tha Mp3 Doctor
I have the Cuisinart EM-100 Espresso Machine, and I just love it. People are usually surprised by how loud it can be, but it makes a great cup of espresso. I had never known the difference between cappucino, latte, breve, etc. I rarely have to go to Starbucks anymore (even though I am a fan of Starbucks). Your friends' models that look like the DCC-1200 were probably the Costco or Sam's version - they have unique model numbers, but it is the same DCC-1200 base. There are a few cosmetic differences, and they lack both the self-clean feature and the gold tone filter. By making a few minor changes, Costco can really say, "We have the lowest price for this product" - because they are the only ones that have that EXACT model number. Have fun with the coffee and espresso makers - I have a Cuisinart double-pair myself. It's always good to have a $10-$15 coffee maker in storage as a backup, just in case these high-tech, Chinese-made machines have an issue one day.
-Tha Mp3 Doctor
I do not have much experience with the Mr. Coffee espresso maker, but there are two things that are going for the Cuisinart that make it worthwhile: 1) Except the water reservoir, which is located nowhere near the heat source and has no reports of breakages of any kind, the Cuisinart is made almost entirely of metal - there is no plastic to melt, or break. 2) Cuisinart is exactly in the middle of Espresso Makers - it is much more effective than the less expensive plastic espresso makers, but it is not in the $400 to $1500 price range (I am always amazed how much people will pay for a good espresso). I would say it is exactly right for household use and entertaining. 3) The Cusinart Espresso Makers are world class - I would estimate the failure rate is less than .5% - maybe even .1%. Any negatives I have seen are largely user error (although the Cuisinart espresso maker does require a LOT of cleaning to keep it in top shape - if you don't decalcify the steam element periodically, it can gum up the pipe, which will give the steam no room to breathe, which could potentially cause a problem with the machine - although even that doesn't usually create a problem).
You are definitely right about one thing - the high-end products can break just as easily as the low end - people don't complain much when their $10 coffee maker breaks, but when their $150 Cuisinart breaks, people do get upset. A "quality" product has a failure rate of less than 6%. That being said, there are a few technologies that were bad ideas from the start, that have extremely high failure rates across manufacturers - one example is rear projection TV's - the average failure rate is 17%, with some manufacturers having a failure rate as high as 24%. And the same manufacturer will have wildly different results on their various product lines - I am not too sure about Cuisinart Wine Cellars and the Popcorn Makers are a little fragile, but their food processors, espresso makers, egg cookers, most can openers, and many of their other items are prisitine, with failure rates of less than a 1/2 a percentage point (99.5% OK or better).
The internet has given the unlucky people a forum with which to publicly air their experience. The 6% that have something go wrong are more motivated to post than the 94% who are satisfied.
Just my two cents.
-Tha Mp3 Doctor
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Back to the original question, I'm puzzled about the 1-4 cup mode as well. Actually, I'd PREFER the maker to go a bit slower. There's many times too much water in the filter basket waiting to drain and sometimes it overflows making a horrible mess. Just one of the very annoying things about this maker that I've come to live with. I think I'll post a review of this annoying beast on the forum!
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I just wanted to also say, that after I did some reading. I also purchased an espresso machine, to go with this cuisinart. as the core of most specialty coffee drinks, is espresso, which I hadn't known.
I think for now, I have settled on the Mr. Coffee ECMP50 pump driven machine, It's not real cheap, not real expensive.
About almost out of my budget, Since i'm just learning to make espresso though, I thought getting the best machine with the best ratings, and has the technology suggested for good espresso, would reduce human error a great deal. The Cuisinart is still making a great cup of drip coffee though. This should be a good pair of machines. I was impressed to see a couple of people from church have the cuisinart, and theirs have been working for 6 years now without trouble. I'm not sure what model, they have the design and shape looks identical to the DCC-1200, but they don't have a self clean function, and I don't think they have the silver and black rotary dials, if they have dials, they are all black.
I was wondering, in the realm of espresso makers, is there much difference between say, my MR. Coffee ECMP50 your Cuisinart, EM-100, I don't have a ton of money to put into such a unit, plus for one person, I would think buying a high priced unit would probably be over kill, since the drip maker is my usual morning up and i mainly need espresso for, the type of drinks I'd get at starbucks, which wouldn't be made on a regular basis. I haved tried a few, while doing my research, first I tried a $30 steam Mr. Coffee, which I returned, mainly because the best espresso suggestions, recommend a pump- based machine. Then I tried, the hamilton beach Cappuccino plus, and the first one had the filter basket break, the second just didn't do anything past a bad cup of strong drip coffee basicaly. and there were a lot of mixed reviews for it, pretty close to an equal number of both. The Mr. Coffee was $10 more and out of the 9 reviews on amazon, I only 2 bad and those could have been human error, or just faulty units, but they said the pump went out after two weeks, I'm not expert on coffee, at least not yet. but I do work with technology, and isn't it true even in appliances an expensive one can randomly break just as much as a cheaper one? Also, putting aside the fact, I don't need an automatic espresso machine, as long as you have a pump driven unit, aren't the parts esntially the same ? I'm just curious. Reviews aren't always reliable in fact, most of the time I don't put all my stock into them, since there is no way to prove their gripe isn't human error, or a defect, or someone just never happy with anything. I i had had a little more money, I may ha e gotten the cuisinart, they proved their name to me with the DCC-1200. so I'm guessing most of their products are the same quality, I don't have anything against mr. coffee in quality either. I just couldn't find the right maker with the right combination of features from thlem, I wanted water filtration and a cone filter, for best coffee, and I haven't been disappointed at all, in fact, my mom just had her black and decker die on her about after 5 years. She didn't get the DCC-1200 because she didn't want to spend $80 on a coffee maker, but she did get the DCC-1100 which was $20 cheaper.
Anyway, thanks for all the help and comments. Let me know If I have any real concerns I need to take into account about the Mr. Coffee pump driven espresso maker, bassed on my research, I haven't found any, and again, I'm just learning to make espresso, so i'm sure as long as i have a nice solid machine, most of my mistakes will just be coffee and tamping/grinding related.
Thanks again.
Thanks Mp3 Doctor, for the great insight, I tried my mr. coffee today and on my first espresso that was worth anything, I got perfect cream a nice think coat of it that lasted until the last sip about. To comment on metal versus plastic, the Mr. Coffee is like the DCC-1200 would be a combination of stainless steel and hard black plastic, and the only 2 bad reviews it had were the pump went out, which could be very much user error . I think a fair assessment would to be :see how long mr. coffee lasts, then at the end of that time decide on my next maker, there seems to be a lot to be said about using a stove top maker too over a stand alone machine. I have to say Mr. coffee has the fact their products are usually still assembled here in the usa. In general, it seems like products manufactured in china and other countries and imported have a higher failure rate, do to lower quality parts. To be fair with more then the coffee maker market, I am a professional computer user, I have always used apple, computers, talk about high end and expensive equipment , even apple still has units that fail, even with their quality control and their guarantee, failure is just a part of the technology beast's nature. I did look up your espresso maker model and other then a higher price tag, it appears to have many of the same internals. here is a link to my Mr. Coffee: http://www.mrcoffee.com/Product.aspx?pid... I think you might be able to better contrast the guts better then me, since you know what you have, and know more the internals used. Let me know what your thoughts are!
Thanks
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