I have the 4 needle Janome MB4 and a Janome 11000SE. Love the MB4 easy to use and does a great job. The 11000SE is a sewing machine and embroidery an also does a great job. Get the largest hoops you can afford. Sometimes I have both machines going. You will have lots of fun with an embroidery machine. Everyone has their favorite brands just like cars no everyone likes the same.

I have a basic Janome 300E. I would not buy a Janome again. Many others and I have had bobbin problems. It seems to be a trend with many Janomes. If they are good, they are good, if they are bad, they are really bad. I have a small Brother and really like it. If I were to buy again, I would go for a bigger hoop size which are more expensive. I have up to a 5x7 with the Janome and would really like bigger. Have heard good good things around larger Brothers and Babylock (both are made by Brother).

I have the singer futura I got it at HSN with the $1000 of extra software just love it but my fav part is that it will embroidery all formats it does not have to be just singer like all the other brands will only use designs made for that machine

I have the Viking Ruby and I love it. It has a lot of great features like a bigger hoop and the endless hoop is also available. It does a great job as long as I know what I'm doing and that's not always the case; i'm still learning. I wanted to start off with the larger hoops and learn the machine and then go to the software. Eventually when I'm ready to move onto the next step then I'll get the software package that allows me to design and do more but I'm not there yet. If I got it now by the time I was ready to understand and use all of it's features there would be an upgrade and it cost me more so I might as well wait. You mention breaking the bank but that means different things to different households. I broke mine to get my Ruby but it was my gift to myself. I'll get a little of that back when I sell my Viking #1 system when it gets back from being checked out. Good luck with your search.

I started out with a Bernina Deco. Over the years I have purchased more than $1000 worth of software designs for it. I will admit I have probably only used 100 of them. I had a Magic Box so that I could convert designs from other formats to PES which is the operating system that my Deco used. That became useless when I had to upgrade my PC. The newer tower doesn't have enough places to plug in the Magic Box even if it would read it. Since my Deco is more than 20 years old and well used I looked for another machine that would use the same software but also be able to use a USB stick. Since Brother held the original patent used in the Deco I knew that one of their machines would be compatible. Ironically I was able to purchase a new Brother PE780D for almost half what I paid for the Deco. It uses the PES format and can take a USB stick which means I can transfer designs from CDs to the stick and load them in the Brother machine. It also has the larger capacity 5 by 7 where as my Bernina only did a 4x4 design. The only thing I don't like about it is that the hoop loads on the opposite side which makes me unable to use the additional hoops I had purchased for my Bernina.
I am mentioned on this board before that I much prefer the stand alone embroidery machine to the combination machines that are out there. I can get a lot of sewing done while the embroidery machine is doing it's thing. You just load it and let it run.

I recently bought the Singer Futura XL 400 and I only use it for embroidery. It was easy to learn. I had never done embroidery. It included autopunch, extra fonts and 2 other programs. I bought it online.

Pfaff girl here. I have a Pfaff ICON and love it. I started with a 2144 and had it for a long time and traded it for a Creative Sensation Pro. I loved that machine. Then I got a good deal on the ICON and took it. The ICON is an amazing machine. I've had it 2 years and I am still learning things that it will do. I am retired and sew daily. This machine has performed beautifully.

This is a 10 year old thread that got bumped by a spammer to promote their business... hopefully OP has already chosen a machine ;)

I have two embroidery/sewing combo machines. My first was a Bernina that took cards. I had to have a machine (like Magic Box) to put the designs on a card to insert into that machine. It was fine until the the Magic Box failed and could not be fixed. Had to buy another Box from a different compay to be able to use that machine. Now, that got tedious.

I went searching for a new combo sewing machine. I got a Bernina, however, I had to flip through multiple screens to get what I wanted. The so called automatic needle threader was difficult to impossible to use. The sceen was too small to see details among other things I did not like. Had it one month and traded it in for a Babylock Journey.

I liked the journey a lot, but it did not like me. I could never get it to do what I wanted it to do. If I lived in another century, I'd think it was bewitched. I know a lot of people love this machine, and I don't know what my problem was. I gave up.

A month later, I bought a Babylock2. It's the machine of my dreams. It is the only machine that I looked at that had a truly perfect way to thread the needle automatically that worked every time, and cut the thread automatically. The screne is huge and it can use multiple ways to get a design from my computer the the machine.

This will be my last machine, so I didn't mind spending so much money. If you can afford it, I'd highly recommend this machine.