Larry,

Look into the Astra line. We've had ours for over a year and we love
it. Original cost: $2600 USD. Included large capacity coffee grinder
and small water softening tank. Salt for water softener needs
replacement every few months. Ours has Steam and Hot Water.

Good luck,

Richard

Larry wrote:
At a Williams-Sonoma store I bought a Jura-Capresso ($1,999 USD) S8 super
automatic. The automatic espresso maker, auto cleaner portion works great
but after 3 weeks of use (2 cups of latte per day) the steam/frother tube
("dual frother plus") started to leak hot water out of the top (where it
connects with a fixed tube) and into your cup while you are
steaming/frothing. This dilutes & fills your drink up with water. I called
Jura's help desk (not very helpful) and they finally sent a replacement
"dual frother plus" part which did not fix the problem. Williams-Sonoma
guarantees for life anything you buy there so I exchanged it for another. A
month later, the same problem on the new machine. I called Williams-Sonoma
again and they are to contact Jura-Capresso to see why the S8 super
automatic keeps failing. I think it was poorly engineered. Two questions:
1. Has anyone had this or similar problem with a Jura-Capresso machine (most
have similar steam systems)
2. Any recommendations on a super automatic under $3,000