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**aussieflicker** · 12 January 2015, 09:55 PM

I'd be interested in comments as well ��

**Chris** · 12 January 2015, 10:14 PM

Got the Oscar and a Sunbeam dual so nearly there but the key question is who makes the coffee and who's interested? The Brev will be the ideal milk machine for those who can't wait and want a coffee on the way out the door ie your average family kitchen with keen coffee drinkers. The Oscar will do the same but needs caressing to life, painful milk steaming etc etc. So if its you who wants to play kitchen barista and serve the family to the best of your ability every day go the Oscar and hand out the coffee. If its communal and has to be flexible for all go the Breville.

To your questions the Oscar will give you better results and last longer, the Breville will be easy to live with. Warm up I guess the Breville would be a few mins to stable if that, the Oscar needs a good 10+ plus a bit of buggering around.

**analdays** · 13 January 2015, 12:22 AM

I've got the BES920 at home.

I find the Autostart and Cleaning cycle features very handy. It can produce great microfoam, same milk results as the commercial machines I use at work, though it is much slower. Warm up is quite quick with the breville.

**zingzing** · 13 January 2015, 09:59 AM

Originally posted by sebtacular View Post

I am aware that the Breville cannot be descaled at home.

The current model breville dual boiler (BES920) which was released over a year ago can be de scaled by the user at home, which I found very easy to do.

**russellb** · 13 January 2015, 10:03 AM

I feel entitled to respond to this, as I ran an Oscar for about 4 years, and now have had a Breville 920 for about a year.

1. The Oscar is entirely a manual machine, so you are free to make your own mistakes. Means a bit of "temperature surfing" to get an ideal head temperature.

2. I ended up fitting a vacuum breaker and OPV valve. Not expensive, but a bit of fiddling. The vaccuum breaker because with the Hx heating of the group, you need about 20 minutes for the temperature to become reasonably stable, and to run on a timer you need the vacuum breaker. The Breville has a built in timer.

3. Steaming performance is a little better with Oscar, so much so that I bought an extra steam tip for the Breville, and have drilled out 2 of the 3 holes to 1.5mm, which saves about 20 seconds steaming 500ml of milk, but still not as fast as Oscar (I have no figures recorded to substantiate that.)

4. Finish - the Oscar (mine was red) is obviously plastic. The brushed stainless is probably a bit more durable.

5. Mechanically/electrically the Oscar is very simple and will probably outlast several Brevilles, and is easy for DIY maintenance. I haven't had the covers off the Breville, but I suspect it will be a different ball game in terms of maintenance.

I'm very satisfied with the Breville's performance, and not considering replacing it.

Hope that is helpful

**Barry_Duncan** · 13 January 2015, 10:34 AM

sebtacular

Welcome to CoffeeSnobs.

I own one of the first BES900 Breville Dual Boilers sold in Sydney by the then Site Sponsor Dennis Wells about three years ago.

The only trouble I have had was an O–ring failure, which was a generic fault in the early machines.

How long will they last? Who knows? Many early ones like mine are still working well. I am careful to soften all the water I use.

They are designed in Australia, built in China with some important parts like pumps and valves made in Italy. Most parts are stainless steel.

The current model, BES920 can now be descaled at home.

The temperature control is excellent with two PIDs, a heat exchanger and a third element in the group head. It will stay within 1 degree of the setting.

I cannot compare it with an Oscar as I have never used one.

There are a lot of good machines out there. Do your homework and buy the one that suits you.

Barry

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