Love my babylock espire, very sturdy, had it for a year, love everything about it, stitch quality, even my crappy FMQ is not that bad and i haven't even messed with the settings yet too much, but can't get enough of that machine. I don't want to even take it in for servicing because I will have to pull out my brother, love it dearly, but its like going from steak to burger. the espire doesn't get the thread nests like my brother, but haven't tried the lower end babylocks, the audrey looks pretty nice, I think it runs 500 but they just had it at my dealer on sale for 300, shop around, stuff goes on sale, especially around times of shows