Well this…but not for the reasons you might think. [upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/7rAH8qr.png] **My grr, is that with the guy being off his gourd and full of fertilizer….WHY does anyone still buy his machines?** They are super expensive considering the basic tech and actual build cost, because of the commercial model adopted (not built by him, but by Fracino, who also ship them),….while he spouts bile and nonsense from the other side of the planet. he didn't like LH review, which I thought was quite kind to the machine, went on a rant and later added me into it, especially as I don't trash Londinium threads on HB (their mods would never let me do that)…just nuts, absolutely nuts? I believe he added me into it, because the ACS Evo, Vostok and Nurri are seriously affecting his business. This negative effect is something he bought upon himself when one of his own associates at the time (who made a little bit of money from Londiniums), tried to destroy my online presence on another forum, which irked me a little. **My constructive way of dealing with that was not to rant, but push ACS to finally make the Evo and help them on that journey (for absolutely free). He has only one person to blame and it's not me…he should look to his good mate in the UK.** Especially as I was at the time about to leave the online coffee world in 2019 and just carry on quietly at home….but the final trolling made me reconsider…what a good job I did! I know I say always play the ball not the man….but in this case the man is not only the face of his company, but the owner, where your warranty resides and any help on his **closed forum**. God help any owners that get on the wrong side of him… *P.S. OK, In a way he is right I do get a benefit in kind, **the sheer pleasure of helping ACS (for free)** to produce a much **superior** machine, at a **fair price**. Of course I will get even more pleasure in future from now on.*

> @"Cuprajake"#p56118 hes also very protected on home barista and why i ended up leaving there as you cant speak freely, Same. I posted a bit there but witnessed some truly bizarre and what appeared to be overzealous ‘moderation’ (control) over the Mazzer Philos thread. Whatever happened to the First Amendment? What was odd is that some criticism goes somewhat unchecked, yet criticism of other things results in threads getting locked. I’m guessing it’s linked to sponsorship in some way. One of the beauties of being an independent forum!

The thing is, when Londinium first came to the market in 2012, their L1 was a good machine, compared to what was generally available. of course it had its own faults as I can testify. But, as time progressed more machines utilising the technology of the day came in to play. Londinium then realised that by following traditional espresso markets (meaning medium to medium dark beans) they were excluding themselves from what was becoming the ever so fashionable lighter roasted bean owner. The meant tweeks and the L1 model became the LR then the LR24 which finally through control of pre-infusion allowed lighter bean drinkers to come into the Londinium market. I believe Londinium cannot do very much else to the LR24, yet it is already very outdated. To pursue the line @"DavecUK"#1 started, Fracino are responsible for building and delivering the finished product. Londinium 'rent' factory production time. Londinium instruct Fracino they have sold a machine and a box bearing Londiniums name is sent out. The price that Fracino charge Londinium includes all their costs and profit. Londinium then add their profit margin. This makes no sense at all and is the reason that the price of an LR24, currently £3743.04 delivered in the UK. The technology in the LR24 is now outdated. The thing I find odd about the Vectis, is the usual Londinium method of bringing something new to the market is to give one to their influencers, especially in the UK who plug the heck out of it in return for a free machine. I noticed that the early demo of the Vectis went to Holland and not to the usual UK contact. He received or started to publicise his machine on July 20th. The chat lasted 7 days and no posts have been made since July 27th. Back in the bad old days of CFUK the Londinium fanboys had a strong presence on the forum and they mined the hell out of it. Then as we know, CFUK was sold and from that was born our own Coffeetime with around 1100 members and is a vibrant forum, and Talk Coffee who have removed their stats from the home page, presumably in embarrassment and have plenty of days when no posts are made at all. This means how do Londinium influence sales in the UK now and possibly explains the lack of chat in the UK of the little Londinium machine. With the much higher than expected sales price of £1541.67, to which you add VAT then delivery makes it £1869.12. That is a lot of money however you look at it. This means that the US market becomes very important for the simple reason that they do not pay VAT although the do pay lower local sales tax. It is a shame to see the very public meltdown that Reiss has had and is continuing to have. It is pathetic in the way he chooses to attack **individuals** making criticism very personal. I hope he grows up and in the process, grows a pair!

Oh I only just noticed this as well, another recent addition,, I obscured the customers name, so his real name isn't repeated by our site. [upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/WtLzb3X.png] I wonder how his customer feels about his real name being splashed out all over the internet, after posting on a forum about issues with his Vectis, under a forum name. That surely breaches data protection and any shred of moral code a company should have!

> @"DavecUK"#p56117 I know I say always play the ball not the man Ad hominem attacks show the author in a very bad light. Moreover, it shows that their argument is weak so they have to trash the author's reputation. Way back, on another forum, there was a cabal who routinely trashed DaveC's reputation at every given opportunity - making the same snide untrue comments that Reiss parrotted on his blog above. They did their level best to have DaveC banned and were, briefly, successful until the forum owner saw sense lifted the ban and invited DaveC to become a moderator which enabled us to silence the cabal and turn around the forum. For Reiss to parrott those self same snide untrue comments is revealing. He has done himself no favours and does not come out of this at all well. If he were man enough, he would apologise to DaveC. But in the echo chamber that is Londinium, I don't think that will happen.

I'm thinking of splitting this off into a separate thread titled. "Why you might not want to buy a Londinium".

I split this off because it adulterates another thread and I thought it important enough to have it's own thread. It all kicked off when @"lancehedrick"#742 produced a review of the Londinium Vectis which Reiss clearly didn't like, although I thought it was very fair, in fact more than fair. **There was some comment on HB which started here and seemed to triggger Reiss Gunson**. https://www.home-barista.com/levers/user-experience-londinium-vectis-t88435-180.html#p956925 https://www.home-barista.com/levers/londinium-vectis-spring-lever-lance-hedrick-review-t90220.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylPm5erWnws&t=774s #### The owner of Londiniums response was to throw his toys out of the pram and post **[this](https://londiniumespresso.com/blog)**, which was amended a few times to eventually add me into it as well! I think **his behaviour is the antithesis of what we should expect from a company**, even if it is a one man band with his machines built and delivered by another company, he has no factory full of employees to worry about, so the only person being damaged by this is himself (apart from those customers who has fallen out with him). When they do they are often excommunicated from the private Londinium (support) forum and I have had people tell me they were informed their self repair parts warranty was now invalid. *I have in the past removed a few negative posts about the Londinium machines/Service before most people would have seen them. I don't think I can extend that courtesy to Reiss Gunson any longer. We are non commercial, have no advertisers and hence nothing to gain by protecting him any longer.*

Back in late 2012, I ordered a brand new L1 but the Luxe version. This came with glass side panels and a polished set of pipes and boiler that were covered in a see through material (like varnish but not varnish if you follow) to protect them. In those days there was a serious queue for machines as Fracino only had a small amount of line production per week. In early 2013, mine turned up and I could not have been happier. I had no experience with levers but loved the concept. After a couple of weeks use, it started to leak from every connection that carried water. What happened, was that the coated pipes and nuts could not be tightened enough at the factory, so they sent them out anyway. Reiss suggested wrapping the nuts with a cloth and trying to tighten. I was not happy with this solution and sent the machine back. It lay for a while and a compromise was reached. I would buy it back with the glass panels removed and normal steel ones fitted with all the nuts tightened. A few months later, an L1 Luxe appeared for sale on the Londinium blog. A cafe in Edinburgh was buying the first Londinium 2 group and Reiss agreed to help promote the sale of their Luxe. I emailed him and asked if he would transfer the remaining warranty. I thought if their machine had been used in a cafe without issue, then it would work for me. He said, 'absolutely' so I made arrangements with the guys and bought it. I found out later that they had not used it in the cafe as it was under construction and had barely been used at all. About a month later (my habit is to switch the machine on at 8 am and turn off around 4pm) I noticed that all the pipes that had been nice and shiny were turning pink. On closer inspection they were building up a deposit on them that you could scrape off in small pieces.I emailed Reiss between Christmas and the New Year to explain what had happened, for him to tell me the machine had no warranty. I pointed out that I had emailed him and asked for confirmation and he had said 'absolutely'. He then claimed he thought I was trying to help a friend buy the machine and had he known that it was for me he would not have agreed to honour the warranty. I could go on and on, but for some folks, this is a good example of Reiss turning nasty when it suits him, which contrasts with the 'legendary' customer service he offers some folks. https://youtube.com/shorts/3HATBEIwg_U

I think this thread is a mistake. My understanding is that this forum was created from a desire to move beyond the factionalism, name calling, toxicity and pettiness that existed elsewhere. Creating this thread doesn't seem aligned with that aim. You won't change this individuals behaviour. The way I see it, there are two option; you can either leave him to it, and have the schadenfreude of watching him destroy his reputation and business, or you can respond in kind to his toxicity. Don't take the bait.

Why you might not want to buy a Londinium

dfk41

The Cremina has been around since earlier than 1967. I suspect in order to see a Vectis in 50 years, you will need to go to a museum

FadedFrontiers

dfk41 The Cremina has been around since earlier than 1967.

No disrespect to the Cremina either but it’s double the price so even more overpriced than the Vectis. Sure it’s well built so are Europiccolas which you regularly also see ancient models of floating around!

dfk41

This was sent onto me today……bad/good news spreads fast!

Systemic

FadedFrontiers No disrespect to the Cremina either but it’s double the price so even more overpriced than the Vectis.

Agree. Aimed at a niche market willing to pay that price so not exactly mass produced. But they must be doing something right given it’s been in production for decades with hardly any modifications. Can’t think of many or any other espresso machines that can boast that.

dfk41

Systemic we could revisit this thread in years to come and see if the Vectis has joined the Sage DB in the Museum of Life

JonWoo187

Systemic Yep having had one for a handful of years there’s nothing on the market I’d take over a Cremina. Who can build a p-stat these days that will last decades and still be accurate/reliable/predictable? Too much disposable junk flooding the market, same with vehicles, etc.

DavecUK

Interestingly the guy who used to pump out all the separate Vectis post topics on Home Barista to try and create a “buzz” and discussions to increase interest in the product, has taken to pumping them out on YouTube. The latest just made me laugh, they use a “John Guest” style connector which an adaptor on the pressure stat pushes into, with the suggestion that if you enjoy different types of coffees you could swap the different pressure stats in/out to get the different temperatures required. I watched the video and thought, this process is ridiculous, people will never do that on a regular basis, as it’s a fair bit of dismantling to get to it. The process requires the top panel both side panels and the back panel to be removed to get access, I counted:
3 spanners
1 socket screwdriver
1 flat bladed screwdriver
1 rachet spanner
lots of jump cuts to make it seem fast

Now I realise that they wanted the simple aesthetic, but to pretend that this is something people might perform regularly when they swap between coffees is laughable. I feel sure that although many good things come from the past, this is a case where a simple temperature controller could/should have been used, either a small display, or even a 3 position switch (under the machine) for the different temperatures…like the Profitec Pro 400. This would almost certainly be cheaper and much easier than the process I saw on the video???

Of course that won’t help the wildly hot brew temperatures very much as that waters still coming through hot as hell.

DavecUK

As this thread makes reference to a now heavily edited news item from Reiss (Londinium), I thought the original text might be useful so people don’t get confused. I have of course redacted the customers name Reiss mentioned publicly. This is how his web page appeared on 12/11/23.

dfk41

Ah, it is there for posterity! Someone will just love this thread…….perhaps he will join the forum to discuss this openly with us…..LOL

John_Yossarian

Not being privy to the discussion/subject (never owned a Londinium) but as an outsider I wonder whether the time spent on blogs/forums could have been better spent in discussions on how to improve/sort out the existing issues. The latter is subject of accepting the issues exist. I rarely see Paolo jumping on a forum discussion on ACS machines. This is usually last resort and usually is to extend a helping hand. Anyway, have a good weekend all.

Systemic

@John_Yossarian good point. Unlike Paolo, Reiss has a reputation for being critical and, at times, scathing about other manufacturers’ products, including ACS which is unfortunate to say the least. He also has a reputation for making bold and, at times, misleading claims about his own products. He has turned Londinium into an echo chamber with him at its centre where owners run the real risk of being cancelled and denied support for incurring his displeasure which, IMO, is not the best way to run a small business.

dfk41

Systemic I might have the dubious honour of being one of the first folks to be cancelled! A real badge of honour! This goes back to very early 2013 when I was a pioneer by buying a largely untested L1 Luxe. So, one good thing came from it. The Luxe version was hastily withdrawn from sale. All the pipes, nuts, boilers were polished then coated with something to protect them, and the machine had glass side panels. It was absolutely stunning! The spanner in the works, was that the nuts could not be tightened enough without marking them so water leaked out from every joint!

John_Yossarian

Systemic

Systemic He has turned Londinium into an echo chamber with him at its centre where owners run the real risk of being cancelled and denied support for incurring his displeasure which, IMO, is not the best way to run a small business.

You made me look for the definition of “cult”, please see below. I would say the similarities are more than the differences.

cult /kʌlt/
noun
1.
a system of religious veneration and devotion directed towards a particular figure or object.
“the cult of St Olaf”

DavecUK

dfk41 ! The spanner in the works, was that the nuts could not be tightened enough without marking them so water leaked out from every joint!

One wonders how it got past Fracinos quality control?

Systemic

@John_Yossarian
Giphy - Boom Pound It GIF by TipsyElves.com

Cuprajake

Oh you wrote cult, I really read that wrong…..

JonWoo187

dfk41 Well stated as back in the day I had a Cremina, think it was built in 1977. I did a top/bottom rebuild on it as the previous owner likely NEVER cleaned the thing and it was found at a yard sale for $3 as his wife wanted it gone. When I parted with it as I simply need more daily volume that it couldn’t give on the boiler size it was still going strong and at that point had the original element, p-stat, etc. and was 35 yrs old. Some might think the Cremina is overpriced/overrated, but if I needed to have one machine the rest of this life regardless of cost, etc. it’d be the Cremina as IMBHO nothing else will ever match that level of quality/longevity/performance with so little preventive maintenance. If I ever decide to cut back on my daily much needed espresso I won’t hesitate to find a Cremina. Paired with the Helor 106 and the world is yours for outstanding espresso and being a part of the hands on process makes it all worth it.

dfk41

JonWoo187 I think one of the greatest joys of ownership is pedigree. Now, there is a famous saying over here, and it is, ’you might be born in a stable, but it does not make you a horse". Olympia have built up a solid reputation over many many years and I do not see that usurped by a new contender just yet. Why? Well, with absolutely no disrespect to Fracino, but they build extremely popular machines a t a certain level, and I think even they would agree their market is more volume than bespoke, yet they build the Vectis using the same assembly lines and share a lot of parts.

The Londinium marketing strategy, is to make a lot of noise, followed by a lot of really dubious claims about their equipment. There is another daft phrase I use and it is a boxing analogy. Pre-fight, a boxer can say what he want…..I am going to knock you out in 6 rounds etc etc, but there comes a point where the referee says, “seconds out, round one” then the real fight begins.

I too have had a Cremina. I was lucky in that I bought it from a good friend of mine @AlJames and he stripped it down completely, removed the asbestos from the boiler then built it back up again replacing every seal and nut and bolt. It was a 67 model but I cannot remember the year now. I was being perfectly serious when I hinted that in order to see a Vectis in 5o years time you would need to look at a photograph or visit a museum

I am sure the Vectis is a capable machine. Yes, the water fill system is novel but certainly not a game changer as it is just as easy to fill the water up on a daily basis. I would not buy one simply because they are way overrpiced in the UK by several hundred £'s. That said, if I were to be sent one, having quite a bit of experience with levers, I would give it a fair crack of the proverbial whip!

Systemic

Had the chance to buy a beautifully restored Cremina for £1k couple of years back. Tried to persuade my son to have it but he declined. Looking back, regret not getting it. Now you can fit the pressure profiling kit which adds another dimension if you want to go there.

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