Well, I went to Shopko this morning, and they had the DC07 for $399,
and the DC14 Animal for $469. Since I hadn't researched the Animal
(we don't have pets anymore), I came home empty-handed.

I jumped online and did a comparison, and realized that the 14 Animal
costs $549 pretty much everywhere. I wasn't interested enough in the
extra tools to pay $120 more for the Animal over the DC14 All Floors,
but for $40? Heck yeah.

I went back out and picked it up.

Initial impressions are good. We had just vacuumed our dining room 2
days ago with the Hoover Wind Tunnel and a fresh bag.

The Dyson filled the canister!

Seemed to do a great job cleaning, and the design itself is pretty
innovative (I like the way the wand is used).

wrote:
Initial impressions are good. We had just vacuumed our dining room 2
days ago with the Hoover Wind Tunnel and a fresh bag.

The Dyson filled the canister!

Seemed to do a great job cleaning, and the design itself is pretty
innovative (I like the way the wand is used).


I've had one of the Dyson Animal vacuums for a couple of years and I will agree;
it is the best I've ever used. When I first got it, some of the attachments
didn't seem to fit like I thought they should but time has broken them in.
Their literature on the use of the various attachments could be improved
however....



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE

" writes:
Well, I went to Shopko this morning, and they had the DC07 for $399,
and the DC14 Animal for $469. Since I hadn't researched the Animal
(we don't have pets anymore), I came home empty-handed.

I jumped online and did a comparison, and realized that the 14 Animal
costs $549 pretty much everywhere. I wasn't interested enough in the
extra tools to pay $120 more for the Animal over the DC14 All Floors,
but for $40? Heck yeah.

I went back out and picked it up.

Initial impressions are good. We had just vacuumed our dining room 2
days ago with the Hoover Wind Tunnel and a fresh bag.

The Dyson filled the canister!

Seemed to do a great job cleaning, and the design itself is pretty
innovative (I like the way the wand is used).

I'm curious though if they're so great why are their test results in
Consumer Reports so lackluster, especially with bang for the buck
factored in. Or is it good marketing, and customers who shell out
half a grand for a vac needing to feel good about it? I can't fault
anyone for that though! And at least they didn't buy the $1330
Kirby Ultimate G Diamond edition which was amont the noisiest of
vacs, and was outscored by 6 models all of which were under $300.

The DC15 actually did rather well, coming in 9th in their list.
Cleaing on carpet and floors was judged excellent, but its use with
tools where it was only average. The machine however was $200 more
than top-rated Kenmore 35922 which had excellent carpet and bare floor
cleaning, excellent emissions, very good cleaning with tools and
average ease of use and noise.

The Dyson DC14 and all its variants scored worse, reaching only 21st
on the CU ratings gathering only an average rating on carpet and for
cleaning with tools, and a fair score for ease of use and average on
noise.

You can see these ratings for yourself if you toss $4.95 at a one
month subscription to CR online (worth every penny if you ask me):
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/a...m-cleaners.htm


Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

On 10 Apr 2006 11:46:44 -0500, Todd H. wrote:
" writes:
Well, I went to Shopko this morning, and they had the DC07 for $399,
and the DC14 Animal for $469. Since I hadn't researched the Animal
(we don't have pets anymore), I came home empty-handed.

I jumped online and did a comparison, and realized that the 14 Animal
costs $549 pretty much everywhere. I wasn't interested enough in the
extra tools to pay $120 more for the Animal over the DC14 All Floors,
but for $40? Heck yeah.

I went back out and picked it up.

Initial impressions are good. We had just vacuumed our dining room 2
days ago with the Hoover Wind Tunnel and a fresh bag.

The Dyson filled the canister!

Seemed to do a great job cleaning, and the design itself is pretty
innovative (I like the way the wand is used).

I'm curious though if they're so great why are their test results in
Consumer Reports so lackluster, especially with bang for the buck
factored in. Or is it good marketing, and customers who shell out
half a grand for a vac needing to feel good about it? I can't fault
anyone for that though! And at least they didn't buy the $1330
Kirby Ultimate G Diamond edition which was amont the noisiest of
vacs, and was outscored by 6 models all of which were under $300.

The DC15 actually did rather well, coming in 9th in their list.
Cleaing on carpet and floors was judged excellent, but its use with
tools where it was only average. The machine however was $200 more
than top-rated Kenmore 35922 which had excellent carpet and bare floor
cleaning, excellent emissions, very good cleaning with tools and
average ease of use and noise.

The Dyson DC14 and all its variants scored worse, reaching only 21st
on the CU ratings gathering only an average rating on carpet and for
cleaning with tools, and a fair score for ease of use and average on
noise.

You can see these ratings for yourself if you toss $4.95 at a one
month subscription to CR online (worth every penny if you ask me):
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/a...m-cleaners.htm


I'll take your word on the report. ;-)

My wife came home with the Dyson "animal" a couple of years ago,
much to my dismay. I couldn't believe she spent that much on a
vaccum.

On the other hand, compared to the other upright vacs we've had
- Kenmore and Regina - the thing works better. Using the
powered brush attachment, it really, really does get all the
pet hair out of furniture, curtains, etc. And I mean all of it,
with very little effort, when the others couldn't even begin to
touch it. I swear that the suction is enough to suck the
chrome off a trailer hitch.

It has several downsides, however. The vac feels, and looks,
like incredibly cheap plastic. The system for using attachments
is clunky - it activates the attachment wand when the handle is
latched upright, but sometimes it doesn't work, and needs to be
jiggled a few times. Ergonomically, it just doesn't feel
right - pushing effort is more than you'd expect, and it's
quite loud. My impression is that the engineers had some good
ideas, but even at that price point, they couldn't make a
really solid machine.

Would I buy one again? Maybe at $200 less. But for $500,
I'll willing to spend a little extra effort getting the cat
hair out myself. Or maybe just get rid of the cat. ;-)

- Rich

I didn't even consider the noise category. In my opinion, a vacuum
cleaner is not supposed to be quiet, so that doesn't bother me.
From the report, I expected it to be loud, but it's about half the
volume of our Wind Tunnel. So I can't imagine what the "quiet" models
must sound like.

Also, I bought it at a B&M where I knew I could return it, because I
wanted to judge the "ease of use" for myself. It's extremely easy to
maneuver...it's actually fun to operate compared to our old vacuum.

The hose reaches all the way to the top of our stairs with no
problems, and retracts fully.

The machine does a great job getting all the way to the baseboards,
which apparently the DC07 was poor at.

Yes, the biggest factor will be reliability. The plastic concerns me,
but I have to wonder how many complaints they'd get if they used more
metal, making it too heavy for some people.

Functionally and ergonomically, I'm happy with the Dyson. If it holds
up, I'll stay happy. If it breaks, I'll curse the name forever.