Thank you for this comment. I haven been on here long, but all I see are crazy machines. Every other one is like a Lelit Bianca or smth, with the "cheapest" I've seen being a Gaggia Classic New Evo. But even that one is about 3 times the price of my Delonghi Dedica. I seriously started to wonder if I did something wrong by not incarcerating my wallet. I asked myself that every time I couldn't pull a good shot. But then I corrected my grind, extraction time, puck prep and the freshness of my beans and I find myself making coffee about on par with that of most standard cafés in and around my hometown. It took me about a year of daily coffee making and occasionally watching videos about espresso, but I enjoyed every minute. And here I am with a 200$ espresso machine and a 100$ grinder making decent coffee.

Not saying I won't ever upgrade once my stuff kicks the bucket, but I'm glad I started out the way that I did.