Have you considered a bluestar? It cooks great and is very easy to maintain as there's no electronics that tend to fail after being subjected to the rigors of cooking.

Blue Star is, I believe, running promotional pricing on the RCS models at dealers through June. When I saw one a couple of weeks ago, I think the 30" RCS model was just under $3k. That is only $200 over that Dacor you are looking at.

The Dacor price seems to be lower than I recalled (thought they went for $3600.) It certainly is pretty.

But your post sounds kind of like you want somebody to talk you out of buying the Dacor..

Never having owned one, I can't really give you any first hand experience, but I can offer these thoughts.

Dacor has taken some shots here at GW for poor reliability, but a lot of that seemed (if memory serves) to be complaints about the electronics used in the dual fuel ranges. At one point Consumer Reports membership surveys were reporting about a 15% defect rate for Dacor gas stoves but I think that number also lumped in the dual-fuel models. In the last four or five years, Dacor hasn't sold enough stoves to CR members for CR to get a relaible survey sample so it has not been listed in the reliability reports. CR has just done another survey but hasn't finished tallying the results. You also might want to check ConsumerAffairs.com to see what kinds of complaints are made about Dacor products and customer support.

The Dacor all-gas stoves have some electronics but those are mostly for the fancy lighting for the controls and the burner. re-ignition. So it seems like they should be more reliable. and durable than their dual fule counterparts. Check with the dealer or see if you can find circuit diagrams to verify the limited electronics. (There is probably a circuit diagram on the back the floor model at the dealer's.)

Several practical aspects of the Dacor stove strike me. First, it has only one "stacked" burner (two rings of flame ports) and the other three are standard porcelain caps as is commonly used on musch-less expensive major-brand gas stoves. In contrast, all of the NXR burners are dual-stacked, fullrnage sealed burners and the Blue Star has star-shaped open burners that some people here are very passionate about. The Dacor also has differing sized burners which is the kind of layout some folks like and some do not.

Second, the Dacor oven is slightly larger than that on NXR and a bit smaller than that on the Blue Star. The convection fan has a filter, which seems like it might be a useful add-on but I know nothing about the effectiveness or benefits of a convection air filter. You can run the Dacor's convection fan with the broiler. (An interlock on the NXR shuts of the convection fan when you turn the oven dial to broil ; Blue Star allows you to run the convection fan with broiler but the manual says not to do it.)

Third, both the Blue Star and and the NXR have an industrial look which is not to everybody's liking. Both of them also have a lip at the front which shelters the control knobs from spatter and means you won't have to clean them as offten. The Dacor does not have that front lip, although the range is definitely prettier. The cooktop surface is a porcelain enamel which may be harder to clean and keep clean than the metal surfaces on the NXR (stainless) and Ble Star (cast iron.) I can say only that the deep wells and stainless surface of my NXR are substantially less work for me than the porcelain enamel surface of its predecessor, a GE Dual fuel with a burner set-up similar to the Dacor's.

Don't know what to tell you about seeing an NXR except maybe posting a question here to ask if there is anybody in Minneapolis-St. Paul who has one that they would be willing to let you come look at. (Can't help you there as I'm a thousand miles west of you).

Another thought: the thing about buying from Costco is that absolute satisfaction guarantee. (A things that has kept me as a loyal Price Club/Costco member for 27 years). My thinking when I ordered my NXR from Costco was that I could take it back for a full refund if I didn't like it. Even after a couple of months of use.) To be sure, that may be glibness on my part, It's easy for me to pull the stove out of my house, and I've got a hoist, burly friends, and a truck to haul the thing.

Hope this helps you sort out your choices.

This post was edited by JWVideo on Fri, May 10, 13 at 21:14

Between those 3.

For $1000 less and can buy from Costco the NXR for me at least would be a no contest winner.