Silvia upgrade.- R58 or the Appartamento??

[whykickamoocow]

Hi Team,
So im in the business to upgrade. Ive been reading through the links and discussions and forums.. I think I'm down to a couple...
Im looking at the R58 or the appartamento. The difference in price... well for me the 58 is a bit too much on the budget... but i figure I'm going to buy this baby once.
Can you tell me - the dual boiler and the PID... is it worth it? the extra 1200?
Im a bit overwhelmed...
Cheers

[whykickamoocow]

argh... thanks Paul. So that means you think that the lower ended one is the way to go?
I consider myself a snob... Im just wondering how many got the lower ended quality E61 HX machine and then look to upgrade that to a rocket...

[TC]

Can you tell me - the dual boiler and the PID... is it worth it? the extra 1200?

Welcome whykickamoocow

About half of the $1.2k goes to the rotary pump and motor & stainless cup guard.

Perhaps you might better compare the the Evoluzione and the R58? The dual boiler and PID then represent more like $500.

Great machines and Rocket resale eclipses that of all competitors...

Cheers

Chris

[readeral]

Hey man,

I was faced with similar choices to you. I didn't end up buying a machine with a PID or dual boiler, but bought a Heat-Exchanger in the league of the Rocket Evoluzione (different brand - but same cost/quality), as my 'for the next 10 years' machine.

Having a machine that is tweakable through a PID is gonna take your time, attention and care to really make the most of it. If you do go down that route, you'll spend (many enjoyable) hours tasting, tweaking grind and temps, because it makes espresso a further multi-dimensional endeavour. I reckon there's value in it - the pay off is probably there for most that walk into buying a PID'd machine with their eyes open - but FWIW, as a heat exchanger owner and a very research/detail oriented person, I'm getting plenty of enjoyment and satisfaction from a machine that doesn't have that feature. It's not the deal-breaker in my opinion.

Ask a lot of PID machine owners honestly, and they'll probably say they don't bother to change the temps, but just enjoy the digital feedback about their temperature stability. There's value in that too, but not nearly as much as $500 of value I reckon. As Talk_Coffee says regularly, a well built Heat-Exchanger will be stable at suitable temperatures. There's a bunch of guys in this forum who do tweak temps, a lot of them roast at home, and/or have gone the hard yards to perfect everything else to make changing the temp of their water worthwhile. But it turns coffee into a 'more-than-a-hobby' hobby I reckon. Decide for yourself if it's something you'll really be able to get around to benefiting from.

The Evoluzione is worth considering to drop that cost of entry down a little, without feeling you might've missed out on something. It's got all of the other benefits of the R58 (both plumbable & internal tank, quiet rotary pump, cool touch wands - they're worth it) without the marginally extra power draw and weight/size increase of having two boilers. I'm not sure if there's a cost of servicing difference there or not, but that's something to consider as well.

Once you get to the Appartmento, you've got a smaller machine again, but you're using the same kind of vibration pump as your silvia, I think similar steam wand (not no-burn) and you're still only getting water from internal tank again like the Silvia. As far as upgrades go, you'll get more value from an Evoluzione and upward (if you end up going to the R58) than you would an Appartmento.

Hope that helps!

Cheers,

Al

[TC]

Agreed- except for the Appartamento having cool touch wands.

If our numbers reflect Australia wide, it may well be the current best seller in this category

[readeral]

Thanks for the correction, Chris. I didn't look beyond my usual info sources to check like I probably should have.

[whykickamoocow]

Al,
That helped so much. Thanks mate you're a champ.

[whykickamoocow]

Thanks Paul and Chris. I really really appreciate it.
Ray

[>JetBlack_Espresso]

Hi Team,
So im in the business to upgrade. Ive been reading through the links and discussions and forums.. I think I'm down to a couple...
Im looking at the R58 or the appartamento. ...

Those models are really different. If you gave us a feature wish list and constraints you'd probably get more detailed feedback. Are you buying a grinder too? Were you achieving consistent results with the Silvia?

charlie

[Jono_Willmer]

Thanks Paul and Chris. I really really appreciate it.
Ray

Hi Ray,

What did you end up deciding on?