I went to one of the sales. The base machine was $149 but the salesman quickly turned your attention to the upgraded machine which sold for $100 more, then he had the heavy-duty "school" machine for $399. A man standing next to me wanted a machine to sew leather and he had a leather sample with him but it would not sew through the several layers he had. I thought I needed the heavy-duty machine to patch overalls,so I bought the same model on e-bay for $184. The problem is getting several layers of denim (seams) under the presser foot. If you can manage that it sounds like it is going to fly apart. If you are sewing on cotton it is quieter but still noisy compared to my other sewing machines. If I had it to do over, I would have passed on this one.