hey mate, tell us about your coffee making habits. If you're making one or two milk coffee's a day, silvia (with some practise) will rock your socks. But once a few friends come over, expect to be in the kitchen for most of the night. If you're making a couple of coffee's in the morning before work, and you regularly have people over for coffee, then I'd start looking at either the sunbeam 6900, or a heat-exchange machine. Most of the HX machines come in at $2000 and more, but if you look around, you can find expobar office machines at slightly over $1000. Some sweet talking will get you one for about $1000. And then there's the grinder. A Rancilio Rocky will do the job, as will the sunbeam em0480 (around $200, I've heard of some people buying them for $170). You might also consider saving a bit more money and getting a grinder that's way above the machine ... like a mazzer mini, or the other grinder that looks a bit like it ... the macap m4. Except I'd be asking vendors if they can get the macap in stepless. But that's just me. Pretty much the case is that if you get a great machine, but use preground coffee, you'll be disappointed with your machine.
