Hi, I have had the 15000 for almost 4 years and simply love it. I would suggest going to the Janome website and checking out all this machine can do. Then going to a dealer and sewing on it. One of the major deciding factors for me was that the embroidery unit goes to the back of the machine and not to the left as most of the other brands do. I knew I had space behind my sewing machine area that was not available to the left. You don't need a lot of space, with the embroidery arm open it measures 27 inches from front of machine to end of embroidery arm.
I also "splurged" at the time and bought a dedicated cabinet for it, perfect. Not one moment have I regretted buying this machine.