Michael, I'm in the coffee machine industry, my company imports machines and has been doing so for many years, and the facts of the matter are: The Giotto is an E61 clone. The E61 design is the best thing that ever happened to commercial espresso machine design. It goes further than just the chunky group head, but most householders only know about this bit. The Giotto has finally been placed in a very well finished body. It works very well, and looks good. And that my friends is all there is too it. The rest is a lot of hoo haa that is spun around and around on the internet within self interest groups and from one group to the other, biulding the reputed quality of the machine out of all proportion by what simply amounts to rumour mongering by people that have picked up on some test that some bloke in a foreign country did on this machine a while back...and because it was posted and subsequently read on the net, it must be gods truth. If that sounds harsh think about it, and note I did not say a single bad word about this machine...! But there are other E61 clones and they work just as well, some have fewer "features", and many dont have a good standard of finish. In consumer terms, that's about it. Some manufactureres use flexible "nylon" tubing to cut down on vibration. Some machines vubrate more than others and by this I dont mean one model to the next, but INDIVIDUAL machines. In all my years I dont think I've seen one of these lines fail yet, as a service provider I dont see the problem for the cloients and nor for the provider that might have to guarantee a possible failure. If you want to see a similar machine with equally excellent exterior fibnish, but with all copper internal piping, that also works in excellent fashion, take a look at the Diadema Juniors in the equipment section of my company website. I have no sympathy when it comes to price. Many people look upon their coffee and machine merchant as some kind of bloke that should work for nothing. Many clients get around in beemers, and buy $10000.00 plasma TV screens for their in house movie theatre...then they come in and ask "yes, but what's MY price"...? when looking at the high quality coffee equipment you sell. My view is that the espressio machine is the cheapest piece of lifestyle equipment on the market in relative terms. Competition takes care of pricing... A semi-commercial machine costs as much as a commecial machine to manufacture.... A one group machine costs not much less than a 2 group machine to manufacture... Machines with a much more well finished look, do and should cost you more than something that does not look so good and in the consumer world image and looks are everything particularly if you want to pitch yopur product into the highest end that commands more money. Hope this helps, FC.
