My wife speedcooks (using halogen) with a Panasonic mini toaster oven type device for the past several years. It is on its last legs though. We are vegetarians but she makes sweet potatoes, potatoes, peppers, cookies, etc in it. I decided to go ahead and get the advantium 27" along with the regular convection oven 27" all in the monogram line. At least that I what I have given to the builder as my appliance choices. I debated about getting the sharp, but may be we might get it in the future and use it as a table top device. Also, being from India, we cook most of our vegetables on the cooktop - like eggplant, okra, string beans, etc. We were literally breaking our heads on what to buy - today we HAD to give our selections to the builder so that they can send to the cabinet company, etc.

Last year we built a new home and went with the Monogram. I wanted the handles, gas stove and the 240 Advantium. We are now currently building our 2nd new home, but I am preferring the Profile's handles this time.. and just don't feel the price difference is worth it, since I have been told that they really are identical, except for exterior features and price.

I was just getting ready to post a review of my new Thermador ovens so your timing's great! Now that I've gotten my oven door back on (another long story and $85 later) I've had a chance to evaluate these ovens for about 2 weeks. I have the MEMC301ES, which is the new Masterpiece convection oven with the microwave/convection oven above. I too was worried sick about the noise based on numerous reviews on this site but I've been VERY pleasantly surprised! Surely they've addressed this issue because there's no way anyone would consider this oven noisy. I've had a very noisy oven before (a Whirlpool Gold about 7 years ago) and a moderately noisy oven for the last 3 years (a KitchenAid) and in comparison, I would say that this oven is pretty quite. I don't really have a kitchen yet - still using the sink in garage - but I made Hello Dolly bars for my husband to take to work last week and the oven seemed to work fine. The telescopic rack is great - in fact I think I might even order another one - and the halogen lights are nice and bright. The jury's still out on the Fast Preheat. It beeps after 7 or 8 minutes but the oven isn't quite at the set temperature yet after that time. I believe it just turns on the convection fan to help speed things up. I understand you can do the same thing with any oven that's both convection and thermal. Now the microwave/convection oven . . . I've used this numerous times already in both modes. In microwave mode, it boils water and pops popcorn much faster than my KitchenAid Ultima did, although it only has 100 watts more power (1000 vs. 900). I'm VERY pleased with that! In convection mode, I've baked biscuits, brownies, sweet rolls and muffins and all have come out great. It starts out a little noisy when you first start to preheat (it sounds kinda like the turntable is clunking a little bit) but then the sound stops after several minutes. One thing that's been hard for me to get used to (compared with the Ultima with the pulldown door) is handling the hot door that swings open. When you push the button to open the door, it only opens 3 or 4 inches and then you need to use a potholder to swing the door fully open before you can put your stuff in (after preheating) or get your stuff out. There is one small thing that makes me crazy though - the clocks on each oven are a different color blue! One is a true blue and the other is blueish green and you can't turn either one of them off. Why do they do this???? In our last house, I had the KA Ultima installed separately over the KA Convection oven and their clocks were also different colors but you could turn off the oven's display - which I did. I know this wouldn't bother some of you (and I also know many of you would hate this just like I do) but I don't think there's anything I can do about it. Sigh . . . Overall, I'd say that I'm very pleased with these ovens. They look great and I'm so relieved that they are as quite as they are. Let me know if anyone has any questions.

Okay, four tests for cheese toast in the Monogram Pro Advantium 240V: 1) Microwave. Not toast. Bread on a plate. Just like any kind of microwaved cheese bread. Very melty, bread soft and kind of sticky wet on the bottom. Tastes good if you like gooey. 2) Oven. Toast setting. Rack from toaster oven on metal tray. No preheat. The Advantium just sucks at toasting. The bread gets very dry and doesn't caramelize (brown). It gets hard and dry rather than toasty. The cheese didn't melt as fast as the bread cooked. I gave it extra time, which made the cheese okay, but further dried the bread, still without browning. Not a good outcome. 3) Oven. Toast setting. Rack. Preheat. Preheat took something like 10 minutes. The bread still didn't caramelize, though the cheese started to turn brown and hard by the time I pulled it out (browned bread is good toast, browned cheese is overcooked and means the texture has gone off, though small spots of it can be nice on a complex dish). Good crunch to the crust and far better than the no preheat version, but still not toasty. Make do. Not horrible. Not really good though. Better than poor, but not really fair. 4) Speed oven. Rack. I'm not an expert with speed settings so I go with the menu. There's a cheese bread setting for whole loaves and frozen slices, but I think it's talking about some kind of prepared product, not a slice of cheddar on a slice of bread, which is what I have. That leaves "garlic bread" and "Texas toast". I'm thinking garlic bread is more about melting the topping and leaving the bread as is, so I choose Texas toast, which also has a 1-2 slice fresh setting. It stops with a minute left to be turned over, so I just turn it back on. As it's finishing the set time, I can see the cheese bubbling all over and that it's just at that tasty doneness before it starts burning (i.e., going brown). I was right about the cheese. It was just right. Very flavorful without losing its texture. The crust was crunchy, though not as crunchy as the toast version. The bottom of the bread was dried out a bit the way it is on the toast setting but not as much, and the inside was much moister and warmer. I'd rate this fair to good. There's potential that with experimentation it could make it all the way to good. Not sure about if it could make it to great. Because the bread gets so dry, the rack doesn't seem to give an advantage. You could just as easily use the grill pan, and that might even be better unless it makes it sticky and mushy. I've used the grill pan on the toast setting before and it didn't allow the underside to toast, which is why I suggested the rack. What I think I've learned is that the problem with toasting in the Advantium is the convection. It's too windy, which pulls the moisture out of the bread and doesn't allow enough surface heat to caramelize. The rack didn't help in that case because the wind is cooling the bread as much as heating it. I think the other speed ovens, which are supposed to toast better, have a direct radiant heat element like a regular oven. I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you. Since you eat your cheese toast daily, I'd guess you like it the way you currently make it. The Advantium may not do it for you. OTOH, if the toaster oven doesn't give you truly great results and you just like cheese toast, you might be able to find a speed setting that works well enough for your satisfaction. The Texas toast setting was acceptable, and you can adjust the proportions of different heat applications and all to your heart's content.