Originally Posted by costumegirl
How do they compare to the 301?
They have the same (or almost the same) motor and slant shank and color scheme.
The 301 is a straight-stitch only machine which has a vertical FW bobbin and droppable feed dogs. It's smooth and quiet and produces nice free-motion quilting.
The 500 is the machine in my avatar at the moment - it has multiple built-in decorative and utility stitches and the ability to add several more with the use of cams. It has a horizontal bobbin and the feed cover raises to defeat the feed dogs for darning and free-motion. (It isn't a very good machine for free-motion quilting because of the bobbin configuration - you'll get a lot of skipped stitches. But you *can* learn how to work it and get acceptable results.)
It was the top of the line in its time and I think that Singer never did really improve on it. It's basically the same machine as a 401, but dressed up in a Jetson's space suit. :)
Mine lives with my daughter, now, but I have 3 503's which are very similar in function. I actually prefer the 403's and 503's to the 401 and 500 because the stitch selector levers aren't prone to gumming up and freezing if the machine sits idle for a while.