I can sympathize- I had the same dilemma because I needed a 24" Range. I bought the Bluestar, because I wanted something better than a Hotpoint or the cheaper Avanti's but I did not trust the Delonghi after looking at it. The Bluestar, American, and Capital all have bigger ovens. BTW, the Viking is not very good and expensive. Ask Plumorchard about the Berta, but I believe it's got an oven button that has to be held down till the thermopile warms up. This would drive me crazy- like lighting a furnace or gas water heater -where you hold down the pilot button until the thermal-couple warms. No thanks. Also some of these euro-ranges have a different ignition on the top burners as well. If it was looks and price, I might deal with the problems on the Elba, (and loose the convection, IR broiler).. But if it was between a Berta or Delonghi and I had to do it again, I would still get the Bluestar or maybe the American if you like sealed burners. Personally, I love my Bluestar. My friend's American 24" is prettier, with more lites in the oven and on the controls, but the Bluestar seems like it's easier to get to internal stuff- if you have to have it worked on. And I wouldn't want to give up the top burners. Finally, what I wished I could have done,(but could not), is find an additional 6" of room in your kitchen, and buy a reliable mid-range major appliance company range that's 30".

I have GE Profile ovens (Trivection & convection on top, convection on the bottom). There are actually four fans...the convection fan that moves the heated air around during convection baking/roasting & Trivection speed cook/broil, the fan to keep the internal electronics cool, the fan to cool the oven down, and the fan to keep the controls cool (top oven only). (The second and third may be the same fan as it's on when the oven is on, regardless of cooking option, and when the oven is turned off.) Yes, you can hear them, but they're not loud and like LowSpark, I don't really notice them. I'm usually in the kitchen while they're running, I still don't really notice them. One thing I do do is open the ovens to let most of the heat out immediately. I started doing it for the top oven so it would cool the control panel more quickly and then must started doing it for the bottom as well. However, my ovens open into a sort of corner and most traffic goes around them. The only time they're in the way when open is when I need to get into the pantry. I just leave them ajar then instead of wide open.

Our Wolf AG range (2007 or 2008 model) has a cooling and convection fan, BUT, it is owner activated. That is, there's a switch to turn the fan on or off as desired (toggle in at the top and the fan is in convection mode, toggle at the bottom of the switch, and it's in cooling mode). And, FWIW, the fan itself is fairly quiet. We had originally purchased a Jade AG range for our kitchen reno, in late 2006-07. We had always used/had gas ranges, however, we were totally unaware, and totally blindsided by the Jade's extremely loud, and extremely long-running cooling fan. No one ever, ever, ever mentioned this "feature" to us during our decision-making and purchase process. As luck would have it, the range itself had numerous issues, and we were all too happy to see the last of it (manufacturer buy-back). While searching for a new, replacement range, included on our list of requirements were for all 6 burners to be of uniform size and BTU's (all 6 burners had to be usable with our smallest pots and pans, as well as our largest), AND any internal cooling fan had to not only run at a reasonable decibel level, but had to have a switch or some other way to turn it on/off. We learned a lot from these forums along the way, but some of our decisions and purchases were made prior to stumbling across GW. I felt then, and still feel now, that it is a HUGE oversight for appliance manufacturers and sellers to omit information re: these loud cooling fans.

The new Bosch Benchmark seems to have answered that criticism of the previous model. Here