I bought an Amana top loader because of the reviews and it's made in the USA. It's so quiet that I had to get used to checking to see if it was running or not. All of the new top loaders have the safety feature of not holding a tub of water, but as another poster wrote, if you unplug it after it fills, you can soak with it...then plug it back in when you're ready. The only thing that irked me was that if you wanted to add liquid fabric softener when you first load the clothes you have to buy a 15 dollar part, (screws into the agitator)...that just irked me, but I'm over it..I love my machine.