Received my new Vivaldi few days ago and today I Had a chance to set it up. I am upgrading from Starbucks Sirena (two years). Below are my first impressions (after around one hour of play, more details will come later)
1) I mostly used the Sirena with ground coffee either packed or locally ground at a shop. It was a nightmare as it was sensitive to changes in grind quality, so I can't say I enjoyed it until I purchased the Vario grinder when I discovered that I was wasting my time & money. But Sirena did not allow me to explore all possibilities of grind/coffee combination as results were unpredictable as one shot would be excellent and te second shot 50/50 even though other variables are fixed.
2) The machine, boxed & un-boxed is not THAT HUGE as some posters indicated. It is as if it is one of the commercial machines struck by "honey I shrunk the kids" laser!
3) Initial setup was quick, chris included a one page first time instruction hidden in the water tank which I followed... no problems tank god.
4) The 53 portafilter holds more coffee than Sirena's 58! WIth the sirena, the maximum setting on the Vario was 13.5 seconds. Any more and te PF would not close. Vivaldi's 53 took te same amount and I could put more.
5) Shots with the Sirena start beautifully ten quickly turn blond & light regardless of Tab strength or grind level. But my first shot with vivaldi using same grind....wow like honey extract all extracting time...
6) My kitchen is cold so I noticed the boiler lamb lights every few minutes, I figure the cold air slips into the interior of the machine cooling the boiler. Must find a solution for tat.
7) Frothing....this the first time I have seen my thermometer run so fast...I need getting used to this incredible frothing speed. I'll need to spend some time here, but that's gonna be a time saver as I usually spend 1.5 - 2 minutes frothing with the Sirena..
![Cool 8)](./images/smilies/icon_cool.gif)
That's all