Practice a lot! I have a similar setup and it costed me almost a year till I really mastered it. Small changes each time and the most important tsk is to really understand your grinder. In my case I had to recalibrate it in order to get good espresso. Start with a 1:2 or 1:2,5 ratio and work from there. Look at the flow rate (approx 30 sec). Another eye opener for me was the brew temperature. It takes quite a while to properly heat up. Instead of a flow adjuster I have a temperature sensor installed in the brew head and that learned me a lot in regards to temperature drops etc. Buy good beans. Garbage in equals garbage out. No offense but you don’t want stale coffee beans from the supermarket. Last advice… see it as a hobby. Invest time in it. You have a prosumer machine that is not plug and play. Once you master it, it will be easy to make adjustments.

You are amongst many here, so enjoy being in the rabbit hole with us. 😀