New Microwave!

[henene4]

Miele Dialog oven

Retail price is like 8k€.
Never really ment as a widespread thing, made to order, more of a showstopper piece.
But incredible technology.

The lower frequency of the waves used means they penetrate deeper. The typical 2.4GHz microwaves most use (which is WiFi range) only penetrate about an inch, while the Dialog ovens lower frequency goes at least twice as deep.
That lower frequency is interestingly in the cell service range - for compliance reasons Miele made the door completely opaque to guarantee propper shielding.

The second big thing is the actual "Dialog" part.
Compared to a microwave oven, which just throws energy at the food, the Miele oven monitors how much energy is being absorbed where in the food.
That allows on the fly adaption of effective power output to the absorption characteristic of the food - adapting to more fatty and more watery areas.

 

[combo52]

915 mega hertz cooking

GE started selling these around 1965 in their versa Tronic ranges, all of these were combined with conventional heat, and a true P7 self cleaning oven.

GE sold these through 1974, even though I own four of these I have not used them extensively, but it will be interesting to compare them to my other micro combination ovens.

Back to current modern 2450 MHz microwave oven, there’s very little difference in cooking performance in comparable microwave ovens, yes, some of the very small cheap ones and models without turntables generally do not cook very evenly but if you compare typical thousand watt microwave oven there’s not much difference.

All newer microwave ovens over 600 W had magnetron problems magnetron do not last like they used to because they’re driven very hard to increase efficiency the typical 900 to 1100 W microwave oven do not have long magnetron life if you use them a lot it’s especially hard on them to do things like pop popcorn in them because you’re essentially operating it with very little load .

John

 

[Chetlaham]

I have to disagree. My JVM1540SP1SS along with other thousand watt microwaves do not heat as evenly as my new Sharp. The JVM is in particular very, very bad. Something about the Sharp is significantly better and reviews also mention the same thing I've noticed: bowls themselves do not heat up as much as the food does. The GE over the range microwave we had in the late 90s did not have a turn table and it heated food better than my current GE micro. Something about a stirrer in of itself helps, and something in the Sharp also seems to further compliment it.

I spotted an advert for an Inverter microwave over on Amazon, and while I am not sure how true it holds, I have to say its an excellent comparison between my JVM and Sharp- except the JVM also browns the mac and cheese around the edges LOL. (yuck)

Have manufacturer's resolved the early magnetron failures? Or is the Sharp destined to fail after two years? In my world the magnetron is the last component which ought to fail.

 

[Chetlaham]

POS JVM1540SP1SS

My current over the range (POS) GE microwave. As mentioned earlier the food explosions and liquid splatter are like fireworks in this thing. With the Sharp the paper towel I place over the food, including pasta sauce and chili, comes out spotless.

 

[ea56]

Hey Zeus Christo thats a whole lotta splattering! I use microwave plate covers and the interior of my 5+ yr old MW is clean as a whistle.

Eddie

 

[panasonicvac]

One of my friends had this Panasonic Inverter up at their cabin which was bought around the same time when we bought this Sharp Carousel for our cabin back in 2004. While I really did loved that Sharp as it's my all time favorite microwave ever but I have to say, the Panasonic outlasted the Sharp. I'm not sure why because it got replaced after we sold the place but that's one of the reasons why I'd buy myself a Panasonic Inverter if I had to have a countertop microwave today.

 

[tolivac]

Like Combo I have a GE Advantium oven.Love this-its a go to machine like my VitaMix.I have had two Advantiums.My first one lasted about 15yrs!They both came from Greenville Appliance.Both delivored and installed by them.Took away the old one.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

cost and availability

How much does it cost? Where are they sold?

 

[foraloysius]

I don’t like turntables in microwaves, makes it difficult to clean the cavity. My Bosch combo oven had a rotating antenna at the top, which did a decent job on even heating. The newer Panasonic with the rotating antenna under the bottom works perfectly, can’t praise it enough.

 

[combo52]

The best microwave, oven designs

Have both turntable and a stirring system for the microwave energy as it enters the cavity.

The magnetron still has a filament in it in all microwave ovens. It is really the only part of a microwave oven that has a definite lifespan, all magnetrons will fail in microwave ovens, if used enough, but the way the circuit is designed and the loading that’s placed on it will also heavily determine the life of it, as well as the cooling of the magnetron.

I’m glad most everybody here is happy with their microwave ovens, microwave, ovens like vacuum, cleaners and dishwashers always have a lot of people that either hate them or love them because of the way they work for them. It’s a very hard product to design where everybody loves it.

Variety is what makes the world go round.

 

[Chetlaham]

Variety makes the world go round

I think we can both agree on this! Diversity drives the economy and the best progress. Freedom is the ultimate inventor and perfecter.

One thing I forgot to add regarding my Sharp is that it cancels the cooking time when the door is opened. When we used a JCPenney rotary oven I remember sometimes we'd close the door after taking food out with time remaining and the oven would continue to run empty. Also with the Sharp the rotary knob will not set a time if the door has been closed for more than one minute. Great way to extend the life of the Magnetron.

@Jerome: Are you referring to the Sharp? I bought mine through Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074RCGYL...lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9kZXRhaWw&smid=A2Q1K7P9UYD1V2

Highly recommend you give it a try.

 

[48bencix]

1965

I visited a fellow student's home in Los Angeles in 1965. She showed me their new undercounter oven. She said look how fast a potato would cook. A few minutes later a fully cooked potato was produced. Many years later I wondered what that GE oven was. Very advanced for the time. Must have been the VersaTronic.

I got my first microwave oven in 1980. I don't remember seeing them much before this time.

 

[petek]

By far the best MW oven we had (and there's been a few since the mid 70s) was the full size GE of the 80s. It was also CR's top pic for quite a few years iirc because of it's even cooking without a turntable. Ours was a more TOL model rebadged from the Bay dept store. Easy to clean, a metal rack, probe, auto cook, auto defrost, auto roast. The "auto" features worked extremely well in that one. I seem to recall back then CR did test for evenness with bread and cheese laid out on the floor so you could see hot spots.
Today I just use the cheapest of cheap midea made RCA compact because that's all that will fit in our mw cabinet space and I put the old Radarange downstairs. For a $50 Walmart mw it's lasted since 2009 of multiple daily usage.

 

[neptunebob]

Chetleham, your MW looks like...

The one called General (but NOT General Electric) that consumer reports liked. It looks like a commercial oven but sold to consumers.

Oh, and I think you need The Angry Mama on that splatted microwave.

https://www.amazon.com/Microwave-Cl...=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy

 

[neptunebob]

Here's a General link

Link to General oven

https://generalfoodservice.com/prod...digital-microwave?_pos=2&_sid=a83b03e33&_ss=r

 

[circlew]

Our first microwave was a Magic Chef that my mom bought sometime in the mid 80's. It was still working when I got a new one, so gave it to the church sale. The new one was a GE that I got in 2006, and it only lasted about 4 years. Was very displeased as I had bought the trim kit to build it in. I went without one for several years until I bought the little Sunbeam at Target in 2019.

 

[panasonicvac]

Well this thread has inspired me to show off the microwaves that we have. I won't be counting the ones that I've used when I was living in other places since I don't remember some of them anymore. Anyways, this first one is our Amana. The original microwave for the house. It was put in our kitchen just shortly before my parents moved in the summer of 1991. After the basement was finished somewhere in the mid 90's, this Amana got put downstairs it's in now and my parents bought another Amana for the kitchen. Both of them are good, I think the basement one is much slower than the other one. Then just a few years ago, my dad bought this Toshiba to replace the other Amana in the kitchen because he wanted a convection oven. Originally we tried putting the other Amana from the kitchen and put it downstairs where the original Amana is at but it was just too big to fit in so we have it in storage now. The Toshiba is trash, it's like chetlaham's GE plus we also had something splatter on the inside once before. It was a mess. And the convection oven is a joke, our LG stove with a convection oven does a much better job but I'm just not a fan of convections myself. I'd like to put our other Amana back in the kitchen one of these days or I'd instead get a Panasonic Inverter. The Whirlpool was later added on. We bought it back in Christmas of 2005 I believe. I remember we nearly had to return it when it was going to be WAY closer down to the stove until we downsized our cabinets to where we made it work still. I think this is my most favorite over-the-range microwave ever. It's showing it's age but I'd like to try and fix this up for as long as I possibly can. As you can see we upgraded it by adding a stainless steel extension hood and we also upgraded to venting it outside ever since we bought the LG stove a few years ago. Last but not least, we have a High Pointe in our camping trailer we bought brand new in 2018 that's also in storage. I don't think I've ever used that one yet.

And that's about it. I know we used to have a few more that I'll go ahead and talk about. When we bought our first cabin back in 1995, we had I believe a white GE countertop. After we renovated it a year later, we replaced it with a white GE over-the-range which I believe was a Spacemaker. At our last cabin, we had that stainless steel Sharp Carousel countertop I mentioned earlier. Again that's my all time favorite microwave ever. In our first camping trailer, we had a white Magic Chef countertop from 1997 I believe. We took it when we sold the trailer so we used it for a bit inside our house in the kitchen then we later brought it up to our last cabin for the basement and left it behind along with the Sharp when we sold the place. Our second camping trailer had a black Dometic over-the-range which was made by LG from 2004. And we had one white countertop that we bought for our trip down to Disneyland back in fall of 2013 and never used it again afterwards, I don't remember what brand it was but I did remember that it had a ridiculously fast turntable.

 

[petek]

Re the Whirpool. It makes me wonder with Whirlpool that on the tag where it says where they're manufacturered they use PRC instead of China. Do they think people might wrongly assume that's Puerto Rico. They do it on Kitchenaid appliances as well

 

[panasonicvac]

I'm not sure. I've also seen this on the Aerus CentraLux central vacuum power units that they've been doing since 2009 I believe. At least when they started making their tanks brushed finished.

 

[Chetlaham]

@neptunebob: It does need a steam clean, but at this point I will probably eventually end up replacing the unit. I feel like investing further effort into this micro is not worth it. But who knows, if I find some cheap interlocks and a descent control board on Ebay I might refurbish the unit.

The General micro is made by Media and it looks like copy of the Panasonic bottom feed commercial microwave:

https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-NE...e6d374b3&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1

The bottom feed might explain why it was so well rated. I am stating to think bottom feed produces the best heating results.