In my opinon, the best coffee maker is the Technivorm. If you ever get to a roasting facility you will find this brand to be the most common brewer. Most brewers (and I am talking about you Krups and Braun amongst others) do not get the water to to proper temperature. As a result you do not get the proper extraction (grind, bean freshness, and water play a huge part and that was not part of the question) when brewing drip coffee. If you take the same coffee, same water, same grind, etc. you will find that the Technivorm will make best coffee (IMHO). This is not with out a cost, as a Technivorm is not inexpensive see http://sweetmarias.com/prod.technivorm.shtml and to me it is worth every penny.

--Larry