Originally Posted by
Prism99
Honestly, for that much money I would be looking at an Innova with lightning stitch. If I had to choose between the two you mention, I would go with the HQ simply because they have been around a long time and have a good reputation in longarm machines. I don't think Janome has been in the longarm business very long.
This is exactly what I was thinking. I do think if you want to add the robotics it is way more "affordable" with the HQ Inifinity then the Innova. I ended up choosing the Innova as I wanted to do hand guided quilting most of the time and felt the Innova was light and had the best control. If I had chosen for the robotics then I would have gone with a HQ. Like another poster mentioned adding the robotics does make the machine heavier and I found it unpleasant to hand quide quilt on it with the robotics stuck to the machine. also I compared Avante to fusion and when the size of the machine goes up it gets harder to hand guide the quilting and accuracy decreases slightly. Another poster mentioned buying the Innova without the lightening stitch. I would not do that if you bought new. Most people switch to Innova because of the lightening stitch and I think it would be harder to resell without lightening stitch. It might be a good option to buy an older Innova with robotics without lightening sticht if you get a good deal and plan to use robotics.