Breville Oracle

“We had an Oracle for 5+ years and a significant amount of problems/repairs. There was something wrong with the steam wand and even though I asked for the technician to "replace the whole damned thing" he reported that doing so had no effect. I gave up on the machine in frustration and sold it. (NB. the "loaner" given us did froth milk just fine). I was never THAT impressed with the espresso quality, and near the end thought about replacing just the grinder. If the steam wand had actually auto-steamed milk worth a damn then I think that's the way we'd have gone. The thing is, it's a terrific machine! Warms up fast; dual boiler temperature stability. Oh, and getting your pf auto-filled and AUTO-TAMPED is awesome! In order to keep the workflow simple for my wife <-- that was the reason we chose this machine. It's a great idea - I wonder why no one else does this. BTW on the FIRST DAY with my new machine and grinder, the espresso was amazing and (of course) I way over-steamed the milk because this is a powerful steamer. Wow. What a difference! I went from hot milk+bubbles on top to that "white paint" of microfoam instantly. I did learn (near the end) that it's really important to maintain the wand well. It has some o-rings, etc. that should be replaced often. Look after the wand and it should serve you for years (or until it breaks next spring <grumble grumble> ;) So if you can live with the auto-foamer, and your wife can use the built-in grinder and auto-tamper, then adding an external grinder for yourself is the way to go. The Oracle has sooo many features going for it. That Breville UI is fantastic. Programmable buttons. Programmable preinfusion. Hey, how about the front wheel lock/unlock so you can easily move it around? Brilliant! An easy fill water reservoir. A Back-Flush program. Sooo many programmable parameters.”