We love it! Replacing our beloved and worn out DeLonghi Magnifica ESAM3300.
As noted in the subject, we bought this to replace our DeLonghi Magnifica ESAM3300. After several years of service, it was wearing out and was obviously going to need repair -- it had developed a leak, and there were some suspicious noises coming from the mechanism. Not a fault, really; we use our espresso machine... A LOT. It gave us several years of good service. But... here's a side by side comparison of the two. It's a little unfair, really, since the Jura E6 costs roughly twice what the DeLonghi can be had for. First, the the noise level. That was one of my consistent gripes about the Magnifica; it's LOUD. The grinder is loud, the pump is loud, everything is loud. I had even pulled the covers off and applied Dynamat to them to try and quiet things down a little. The Jura E6 is very, very quiet by comparison. Delightfully quiet, in fact. Two thumbs up and a big grin for Jura here. I can stay in the kitchen while the coffee is made if I'm on the phone... and since I'm a full time telecommuter, that happens a lot. Next... the capacity. We were filling the water and emptying the grounds on the Magnifica at least a couple times a day. The Jura? Once. The grounds bin and water tank are both significantly larger, which is really nice. Another win for the new machine. We're just a little bit more spoiled now, I guess. Operation... Overall win for the Jura. Startup and shutdown are faster. It seems to shut off the heater after a while (very good) and heats back up quickly. The simplicity of operation is a BIG win for the Jura. Not for us, mind you. We both knew the knob settings on the Magnifica. When company tried to make coffee, though, it was often problematic as the controls were not exactly intuitive. Jura's LCD screen and instructions make it dead simple. It's maybe not QUITE as versatile when it comes to things like making a 16 oz. to-go cup, but we manage. The built-in milk frother more than makes up for that!! I take my coffee black, but my wife likes her creamer. Well, now she likes her cappuccino. Cleaning... the Jura does seem to be a bit more maintenance intensive. It's often asking for various cleaning cycles to be run. I'll give it a pass for that; we may not have been cleaning the DeLonghi often enough -- although we did descale it whenever it asked for it. And if I don't need to disassemble it to clean stuff out, I'll live with it. The cleaning supplies, though, are NOT cheap. So it's definitely more expensive to operate than the Magnifica. I'm hoping this translates to a longer life. It bloody well had better, for what this thing cost us. Look/feel/quality... About neck and neck here, really. The Jura is a little more modern/upscale looking, but really both are very solid, high quality machines with excellent construction, fit & finish. Of course we'll see how the Jura holds up to the daily beating of two non-stop coffee drinkers. And finally... the coffee!! How is it? Well... overall, I'd say a notch better than the Magnifica. Not night and day,. mind you, but noticeably better. The crema layer is thicker and longer lasting. The temperature is also better; it's several degrees hotter, meaning I don't feel rushed to drink it before it gets cold. I can make coffee with the "Coffee" button, or do it Americano style (espresso shot followed by hot water), which didn't really work well with the Magnifica. It just didn't seem to get quite hot enough. We seem to use just a hint less beans with the Jura; possibly due to the grind. I could be wrong, I haven't measured the bean usage. Of course the milk based drinks are more frequent and better than what we did with the Magnifica, just because I suck at frothing milk and the Jura doesn't. Due to the ease and speed of operation, I drink espresso and macchiato more often than I did before, and even enjoy a cappuccino now and then. I have noticed that is more coffee residue left around the rim of the crema and in the bottom of the cup than with the DeLonghi. Again, this may be the result of a finer grind with the Jura. We've left the grinder set to its factory midpoint setting. We had adjusted the Magnifica's grinder one or two notches finer than its out-of-the-box setting. Overall... If you're considering this machine, I can't imagine you would be disappointed. I'll check back and update this review after we've beaten it to death for a couple of years and we'll see how it holds up. Read more
