Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have owned a few KitchenAid 5 Qt mixers, and even a Hobart Professional 5 Qt (45 lbs, 3 speed manual transmission). I was disappointed to hear (but never experienced) the problems users encountered when KitchenAid changed their gearbox from metal to plastic (yes, their gearbox, not their gears). Therefore, the assurance that currently appears on their product box that their mixers have "all metal gears" does not address the problem of the gearbox COVER material. Whether K'Aid has addressed this issue has never really been clarified by them adequately for my taste, and so my temptation to purchase the 6 qt. KitchenAid was dampened. I purchased the Cuisinart 7 Quart because I wanted the extra capacity - simply that. I find that its power is adequate for all tasks, and no matter what the speed setting, it "knows" to ramp up to that speed slowly (so as not to produce a cloud of flour or other ingredients with the potential to scatter), something only possible with the advent of newer electronic controllers. The bowl is deep and well designed. A word about wattage: Please don't puchase any mixer because you believe that high wattage will translate to more power. That just isn't so. Wattage is a measure of power consumed by the mixer, not put out as torque (ability to slog through heavy doughs). A poorly designed motor will use lots of watts, but will not deliver it to you in increased power. This mixer happens to have 1000 watts of power - sounds like a lot. The point is that whatever its power draw, its power output is sufficient for the tasks at hand. Way back when, I had a KitchenAid 5 qt. that used 325 watts (before wattage became sexy). It, too, had adequate power; today, with the marketing of wattage as a meaningful number, people would sneer at such an "underpowered" unit. Silly, really. This mixer is well designed. It has a mixing timer, a pulse button, both of which are useful. Its lineage (for those of you who are interested) is as follows: A UK brand, Kenwood, marketed a quality 7 qt mixer that was popular in EU for many years, but was never very popular in the US market. It was sold to Rival, and for a short time, was available under that brand. It was then sold to DeLonghi, who modified it a bit; then it was sold to Cuisinart, who made the most significant modifications to it (deeper, better designed bowl, better controller with timer and speed ramp up feature). The mixer was always inherently a good one, even way back when it was a Kenwood. The design of this mixer, with its large capacity, still allows the beater head to pivot up, allowing the beater to clear out of and away from the bowl, whereas the beater heads of the KitchenAid 5 and 6 qt models are fixed and require that the bowl be cranked down, but leave the beater pretty much in the way. I prefer this design as it offers more access to the bowl (no matter what they tell you, you must still scrape down the bowl periodically - the question is, which design allows you to do that more easily?) Its tools (whip, dough hook and flat beater) are extremely well designed and are, I think, a bit better than KitchenAid's. I'm not an "accessory person", and so I cannot speak to the quality of the pasta press, meat grinder, blender, etc. I will say that K'Aid most likely still offers a greater variety of accessories, and so for those who are interested in milling grain, straining tomatoes, opening cans, etc. by using mixer attachments, I think this is probably not the unit for you. An extra bowl for the unit (which I find very useful) costs $55 directly from Cuisinart, although I see it here on Amazon for $99, an unbelivable markup. I highly recommend this mixer, have made everything from heavy cookie doughs to merengues, and find it to be well designed and a pleasure to use.