Unlike MKBHD, James Hoffman has some slightly more objective credibility. He won some barista competitions about 15 years ago. He's been involved in the coffee industry (outside of being a content creator) for most of his life. As far as I know about Marques, his main qualification is that he was just relatively early to the tech review game.
That is not to say that I personally take all or most of Hoffman's suggestions at face value. It's abundantly clear that the level of nuance he considers in coffee is not relevant to me. But I do tend to see him applying a much more objective level of rigor to his reviews than many other content creators.
The draw of MKBHD has nothing to do with "objective credibility". Consumer tech reviews are more about whether the reviewer will discuss daily usability objectively, and entertainment.
Coffee is more niche. It makes more sense for "objective credibility" to play a role there.
Very few tech reviewers have anything other than experience. Nilay Patel trained as a lawyer. He can’t code, can’t engineer, isn’t an industrial designer etc. it’s one reason why tech reviews are so obsessed with keyboards. For most reviewers keyboard feel is one of the few areas they have real expertise in.
MKBHD is absolutely as qualified as 99% of his peers.
When he trashed the aldi espresso machine I think he was unfair. The main issues with it are probably the same issues you get on a Breville until you tune the OPV and get a seperate grinder. That said I dont think he is the screwdriver to espresso machine type.
I've got a Bambino Plus and so far the only customizations are a bottomless portafilter, a huge single wall basket (IMS), programming the flow presets for a good ratio by weight in/out, and optimizing the grind specifically for 30s duration. I'll have to look into your OPV suggestion; anything else?
Bambino might be OK stock?? Not sure. Only change the OPV if you have a problem to solve. For me it was slightly too fine gets zero extraction and the pressure compacts the puck. Then go a bit coarser and it spews out.
Yeah, I wouldn't compare them at all. Hoffman is also by all appearances and mannerisms a standup individual, more of a Mr. Rogers of coffee than anything else, in my opinion.
You know, I've watched basically every video of his for several years now (as well as going back in the archives for some of his older stuff), and I think this is the first time I've ever encountered his name.
I have found Mr. Mobile (Michael Fisher) to be quite good. He does some sort of a road trip or excursion as a real world tech review and also covers a lot of old and quirky hardware.
I find his channel useful just for getting an opinion from a end-user perspective of what a product is like; that's a legitimate opinion, not every data point needs to be a deep dive into the manufacturing process of a particular gadget.
Source? I'm from Italy, where everybody's using them, but never heard of a single one exploding. Maybe you can find an isolated case, but I'm confident it's extremely rare. There's a safety valve to release pressure after all, and if you use the Moka correctly the valve never has to engage.
I’m in the Dominican Republic, and moka pots are 99 percent of the market here as well. Everyone warns me about moka pots exploding, but I’ve never met anyone (15 years here now) that knows of one first hand that actually exploded.
But everyone is terrified of mokasplosion.
I’ll admit, the prospect of a pressurized vessel of boiling water is a potent reminder for precautionary thinking.
Minor nitpick here, but it's a fact I found interesting when I heard about it. The water inside a Moka doesn't boil, you can indeed observe that the water coming out from the top isn't boiling. What happens is that the air that is left inside the bottom chamber expands due to the heat, pushing the water upwards.
Well my wife had one and it exploded (and it was Italian, Bialetti I think), we have several friends with explosions etc. It's of course possible that Italians use it properly and we don't, but I'm not an expert in this topic, so I just stay away from them.
This is unexpected to me: I would have assumed that, even if you did something wrong, the valve would have prevented an explosion. I can understand a single valve going bad, but if this happened to many of your friends there might be something going on there.
He wouldn't take it. He'll review it after it's been on the market for about half a year, without any money.
Lance hedrick is also a decently respected voice who does usually take sponsored reviews, whilst being honest.