Noniwilli - Hopefully I can help shed a little light for you. We'll start with the Electrolux lines. A few years back Electrolux Corp bought the Frigidaire line, giving them a large stake in the U.S. appliance market. Four or so years ago they launched a 'super premium' line - Electrolux Icon. They tried to line it up to compete against Wolf/Subzero, Monogram, Dacor, DCS, Thermador, etc. Last year Electrolux Corp launched their Electrolux line which is meant to compete against Kitchenaid, Profile, Bosch, etc (your premium lines). Now, if you ask me, the Electrolux lineup is superior to the Icon line (mostly due to the fact that it was launched a few years after the Icon line) for now (the Icon line is supposed to be revamped sometime soon). Now, onto GE Cafe vs Electrolux. To start out I've got to say you can't go wrong with either one, it's more of what is important to you. The Electrolux has a nicer rack system, but they are not self clean racks like you find in the Cafe (you can leave them in during self clean cycles). The Electrolux has the hidden bake element while the Cafe has the exposed element. There is a positive and negative side either way you go. If you've got a hidden element, you have to heat the little compartment the element is concealed in before your main oven compartment is heated, but cleaning is a lot easier. The Cafe is the opposite - you heat the oven compartment immediately, but cleaning is a little more tedious. They both have meat probes, which is a feature I use on my oven a bit. The Cafe has five burners up top and the Electrolux only has 4. They both have the second oven at the bottom. The Cafe is a freestanding range (doesn't lip over the countertops and pushes back against the wall) and the Electrolux is a slide-in range (lips over the countertop). Cafe is a grey/black interior while the Electrolux is blue. And of course, the Electrolux has those amazing easy-glide, full extension racks. Hope this helps. The Guru has Spoken Here is a link that might be useful: The Appliance Guru Reviews, Advice, Giveaways and Commentary

I have a GE induction range and an Electrolux single oven. Both ovens work well. Best to go to an appliance store and try a few. Many stores in my area have them ready for a trial. In MD, Bray and Scraff do as well as some smaller places in PA.

I have the new Cove dishwasher which is of the SubZero/Wolf family and I am in love with it. It is the best cleaning and quietest dishwasher I have ever owned. I would not recommend the Thermador range/oven (I had the 48" oven/steam oven combo installed November 2019) as the noise from the oven fan is the worst I have ever experienced. It is so loud you can't hold a pleasant conversation in the kitchen while it is running. And it will run for 45-50 minutes after shut-down to properly cool the ovens. Many on Houzz are having the same issue - and I've read some on other boards. We are hoping Thermador comes up with s "fix" for this - because as it is, I am loath to run this oven. I had a DCS 36" range with oven and a half before and am kicking myself for not staying with that brand. My new kitchen also got Dacor side-by-side fridge/freezer towers and they are a DREAM - love them! With the solid glass shelves I never lose or forget about anything in there and the door shelves are nice and deep to hold larger items.

Carl wrote, in part: "... we are at the tail end ... " Sorry that you missed the note somewhere that the entire kitchen as a system needs to be defined before buying anything and particularly before defining cabinets and cutting duct paths. The kitchen system has to include both the hood system and the make-up air system. Both of these can (in some cases) be relatively non-complex, but one has to analyze air flow requirements and components that achieve them in order to know what to buy. I can recommend parameters that will achieve sufficient air flow in most cases, particularly including hot oil cooking. These are the same as recommended in myriad topics here over the past decade or so, and should have been reviewed when thoughts of kitchen ventilation first occurred. High school math is needed. In summary, for capture the hood has to overlap the rising and expanding (i.e., conical) cooking plumes that are emitted over the surfaces of pots and pans. A 10-degree angle to vertical may be used.* Side cabinets should aid capture and allow a small reduction in hood width. Cooking odorous stuff in the cooktop center can help. Front-to-back "depth" has similar requirements, except that for wall placements, the wall acts as an extended capture boundary. So ideally, for a 36-inch cooktop, that may have front pan edges at 18 to 20 inches from the wall, a 22-inch or greater hood depth is desirable. The 3-inches each side is desirable. Note that the rising plumes are also susceptible to cross drafts and turbulence from human movement, so bigger than the cone limit is better the higher one sets the hood base. For containment, the air velocity entering the base aperture of the hood has to be high enough to ensure that all effluent is entrained into the flow that goes through the baffles. This varies with the plume velocity, the volume under the baffles, and general configuration of internal reflecting surfaces. I recommend 90 ft/min across the area of the hood base, and this translates to 90 CFM per square foot of hood entry aperture. For blower rating, the fan curve of the blower has to be accounted for vs. pressure losses (air friction) of baffles, hood transitions, ducts, wall or roof caps, and of course, the make-up air (MUA) balance vs. house pressure. As alluded to way up this thread, a factor of 1.5 times the required containment flow rate determined from the paragraph above may suffice if the MUA is sufficient. Duct diameter should keep full power flow velocity (duct CFM/duct sectional area) in the range of 1000 to 2000 ft/min. MUA I will defer for now. If you will edit your word salad into paragraphs I will look to see what questions I missed answering. ______ * The plume is actually a distribution function that varies with moisture and grease content, pan surface temperature, and whether the heat source is induction, gas, electric coil, hot coals, etc. 10-degrees should be sufficient to balance the wider plume "rays" against their more easily entrained lower upward velocities.