New Design with easier to use water tank, Nicer portafilter. NOTE: New design has piece of foam to help hold water tank, and black rubber trim along front edge of machine on top, grates for grinder and waste water also have round holes instead of square ones. (If you see this model run away as fast as you can! If you already have this version of this machine ...sorry about your luck, destroy it before it destroys your tastebuds!)
Negative Product Points
Grinder settings very inconsistent Cheaper boiler and pump Grouphead temp will not go past 160 without activating steam button
Detailed Commentary
I purchased my first La Pavoni Napolitana almost 3 years ago from a seller on ebay, after a little trial and error with grind settings and tamp pressure, I was finally able to pull a pretty decent shot of espresso with thick, rich, crema. I could not believe the crema this little wonder put out (easily 3/4 of an inch in a 2 oz shot glass.) After 3 years of faithful service the boiler element finally went out. So off to ebay I went in search of a replacement. Within 10 days my new machine arrived (thank god! after 10 days of charbucks I ready for a bullet to the head) I set the new machine to the same grinder settings as my old one, prepped the machine and got ready for a little trip to heaven. And then reality hit....Hard. The grinder settting ground my coffee to powder, the old setting was about a 2 1/2 the setting I'm currently messing with is somewhere between 5 an 6 1/2. My main problem is the grouphead temp will NOT get above about 160 (which is pretty much useless) Even after letting the machine warm up for 30 mins! Another reviewer wrote that he turns on the steam button before turning on the pump to compensate for this. This is a great idea except you just turned your 500 dollar La Pavoni into a 40 dollar Mr. Coffee steam machine. I also shudder at the thought of 220 degree steam going through my puck of 25 dollar a pound Illy coffee! All of your sweet oils from the bean kinda tend to be evaporated with the steam, leaving you with a nice big shot of bitter, burnt espresso (or the starbucks special as I like to call it) overall this machine has turned to crap. Looks good on the counter, but that's about it! I'm very disappointed about the apparent drop in quality of the La Pavoni machines, if you can't make a decent espresso with this thing after trying different techniques with over 5 lbs of coffee, then it's no better than a 500 dollar paperweight. Sorry La Pavoni, you lost a faithful customer.
