"Excellent, well built bread maker. Nice retro look. Solid construction mostly stainless steel. The handles are chrome covered plastic but that is probably due to keep them cool to touch during baking.
Unit is quiet...does get a bit noisy on 1 LB loaf kneading but that is due to it vigorously flinging the dough around inside the pan to get all the dough in the pan (ie, from the sides) mixed in. On 1 LB loaf paddle alternates between one minute clockwise/one minute counter-clockwise kneading resulting in extra pan noise and bit of walking on the counter (keep it away from the edge)...only an issue on 1 LB loaves. Convection feature is dead silent. I do like the bread this unit makes. Loaves come out nice and crispy with an explosion of flavor from the crust. Texture of bread is even and just right. I noticed 1 LB loaf seemed a bit well done on 'medium' crust setting but that may have been because it was a cheese bread (cheese tends to brown/burn easily in any cooking appliance). French and other loaves perfect browning. Bread pan construction itself seems pretty lightweight and simple: has a single paddle with a rubberized gasket on the shaft through to the other side. I think this will last better than the 2 other bread machines I've gone through where the paddle shaft always ends up leaking. Those had complicated paddle shafts with sealed bearings and ended up leaking oil. I'm hoping the Cuisinart's seemingly simple shaft construction is the answer.
Instruction manual is nice. It is spiral bound with unit instructions on one side and recipes on the other. Recipes are a bit complicated (ie, 1/4 tsp this, 1 2/3 cup that) and may have been converted from metric but I suppose they will work. Frankly, I've been sticking with tried and true recipes from my old bread machine and they come out excellent in the Cuisinart...better than in my old Oster it replaced.
If you want a solid, retro looking, great tasting bread maker this is the unit for you."