Hi Carol-no way would I spend that much on a machine at this stage. I just bought the Brother PC460 Project Runway thry Amazon.com for about 450.00 and no sales tax plus free shipping. It has so many features-plus 294 stitches, knee lift, auto threader, needle up/down, and comes with a walking foot plus many extra fee/gadgets. It also has a 7 1/2 inch throat. I LOVE this machine! I bought the extension table that fits it from Amazon.com too, and got free shipping and NO sales tax. They had the best price I could find-and I spend a long time looking! Everyone has their favorites, but the features on this one went way beyond my expectations and for the price, can't be beaten as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, check it out! No way should you have to spend a thousand or more for a machine with all those features!
However, if your wanting a long arm, those are the prices they go for from what I've seen. By the way, where are you if not in the USA??