I could go on and on about everything wrong with Dacor and have on this forum, but my experience was three years ago and maybe they are better now. I had the Discovery wall oven and the ER36D range. I would also be aware that sales incentives can color the opinion of some sales people. Before you buy, check out the reputation of the store where you would buy your appliances. Check online reviews and BBB. Anyway after we got rid of our Dacor appliances(they bought them back), we thought maybe BS and drove 250 miles to look at them but my husband did not like the fit and finish and they were having problems with the doors and ignitors at the time. We decided to go with the Wolf DF with a sealed burner. I thought we were settling at the time because I wouldn't have the 22K burner. When I got the range, I loved it. It has plenty of heat for the type of cooking I do -searing steaks and the occasional stir fry. The simmer can keep a pot of mashed potatoes on all burners indefinitely. It is often said the flame on the sealed burner spreads but I have not problem making caramel in a 7 inch pan. The semi sealed burner on Wolf AG is different and I haven't cooked on it. If I did a lot of stir fry and high heat cooking where I wanted a more central high heat and that were the most important consideration, I would think about the culinarian and if the simmer wasn't low enough use a simmer plate. I still like the BS shape of the burner for even heating. I don't think there is only one good range but each has features that might suit your style of cooking. The oven in the Wolf DF is great because you can manipulate the heat from the top or bottom depending on what you are baking/roasting and you can use the convection only mode if the oven is really filled up. I've never had to though as it bakes very evenly on the conv bake cycle. I also like the cool doors, with the grands running around plus I don't want to stand in front of a hot oven and the self clean. The AG ranges have the infrared broilers but we grill outside 95% of the time so this was not a feature that was important to me. I know you didn't ask about Wolf DF but since you were considering Dacor DF, I thought I would mention it. Good luck with your decision. deeageaux- "You can argue how much better the Culinarian cooktop is but I don't think anyone can serioiusly argue that the Wolf/Monogram is as good or better" Yes, you can. They are very different and not everyone has the same priorities when choosing a cooktop or range.

First you need to decide whether you want the burners all the same btu's or different btu's. There is no right or wrong answer; it's personal cooking style, and there are fans with both camps. I myself would prefer the burners to be all the same so that I don't have to shift pans around if I am going from a full boil down to an ultra-low simmer. But other cooks want, e.g., a burner dedicated to high-power like the Dacor's 18000 btu one. Now as to the question of Dacor vs. Viking, there have been a lot of complaints on this forum about Viking quality, just do a search on this forum for the threads. If I were to go for a Viking rangetop, the selling point for me would be the Viking's open burners (rather than sealed). But you are picking the Viking with the sealed burners, so then I don't see any advantage to Viking over Dacor at all. Just my $.02.

How old are your current Dacor ovens? The Discovery ovens with the oscillating element under glass work in a very different way than regular ovens. The idea of the oscillating element is to keep a very narrow temperature. I would want to try before you buy. I had this type of oven and unless it has been dramatically changed, it did not work for me It has a very hot preheat and the manual warns against putting food in while the oven preheats. In order to keep food from burning, once the oven has reached the set temperature, the preheat will not come on until the temperature drops 150-200F. The problem is if you are baking cookies or something where you are opening and closing the door, the preheat cannot come on and bring the temperature back up. The oscillating element are not enough to make up for the lost heat. It might work if you preheat and then put your food in for an hour and don't open the door. A regular oven works by kicking the bake element on when the temperature drops by 25F. Maybe they have fixed this problem since I had mine but the only way to tell is to try it by baking something that requires opening the door frequently.

We had one of the first 7 series Viking's out with the griddle and it was awful. You would cook 4 pancakes in the front and the first one in the back wasn't ready to be flipped over. We went through four units before we gave up and had it replaced with a 6 burner unit. While we were out the 800 bucks for the delta in cost, we were much more happy this way. An Update: After a LOT of back and forth and uncertainty and looking and trying them out, we are going to go forward with a wolf 6 burner + grill. In our last home the grill was 8 feet from the kitchen. In this one you have to go through a bedroom and down stairs to get to it. So unless I'm doing something pretty darn fancy, I'm not likely going to be using the grill (which is pretty sad because I love that grill). We really want the 48" for comfort of two folk cooking together, which we do a lot. We can't bring ourselves to do Viking again, and they still don't have a wok ring for their 7 series after multiple years (and the aftermarket "works with everything" don't work with it). We seriously considered bluestar and just can't bring ourselves to do the open burner thing. I'm sure it is wonderful, but it's just too industrial for the kitchen we're putting together. Because of the above we are going with the Wolf 6 burner + Grill. We'll spring for a grate with the integrated wok ring in it. I'm not 100% certain just how often we'll use the grill, but I know we'll use it more than the griddle. It's also the same height as the other grates, so you can easily move from one burner to the next. I'm not 100% sure we're making the right decision, but we're making the best decision with what we know! Now to figure out: is a 48" hood "enough" or do we need to give up cabinet space for a 54" hood. And is the 9" low profile Best by Braun hood really just as "good" as the 18" one, if they both have an external 1200 CFS blower.