I currently use two machines--a Viking and Pfaff--and love them both for slightly different things. You can see from the trend of the posts that there are some brands that are favored by a lot of people, but so much of it depends on what YOU want. Do a lot of test driving before you buy and have a list of features that are important to you so that you can make sure you get a machine that at least meets your minimum criteria. There are things about my Pfaff that irritate me. When the bobbin gets low, it stops every few inches until I change it, which is a huge nuisance if it stops in the middle of a long seam. It tends to eat fabric unless you use a leader. But it sews a dead accurate 1/4 inch seam and the IDT feature insures that my quilts are much straighter than they once were.