deeageaux- "the rest is not really at the front of the luxury class" Luxury class? What does that have to do with cooking/baking? If perceived "luxury" is important, many will get a Viking(name recognition) or a La Cornue(exotic, expensive and beautiful) or hire a cook. On this forum, posters often compare Wolf, Bluestar and now the Culinarian. Many are derisive of Wolf, even calling it a play stove. They seem to be zeroed in on one aspect of cooking, a higher BTU burner. All are great ranges but have strengths and weaknesses. If you know how to cook, you probably would be happy with any of them but there might be some features that would mean more to you than others. I have had a Wolf DF for about three years and love it. It replaced a Dacor DF that I had about 7 mos and never worked right. I'm sure some other ranges are great too but just don't get the "press" on this forum. Very few people have cooked extensively on more than one of these three ranges to compare directly. It is much more complex than one issue for most people. If having the highest heat were the only issue, save yourself some money and buy a Wok burner @ 75-125K. You would really have some heat then! I have also heard of people hot rodding the Wolf to produce higher BTUs. Wolf also makes a 22K wok burner(separate cooktop) that focuses the heat in the center like a real wok burner if you stir fry a lot. The BTU rating is actually a calculated number determined by each company with no supporting independent testing available for the consumer to look at. The Culinarian is self rated, @ 23K. This might be useful though for a faster time in heating water or stirfrying. I would also consider Bluestar(@ 22K) as I like the configuration of the burners(star shaped) and there are different sized burners on that range. I have plenty of heat with my Wolf though and rarely keep it at top heat. If I am searing steaks, I use cast iron which holds heat and sears great. I often here posters here say that the flame is directed outward with a sealed burner on the DF, but after I have used it, I think it is splitting hairs and have cooked on open and sealed burners. If you turn the burner on with no pot in place, and bring your hands in, you can feel the area where the heat rises. I don't find the heat going around the pan but you do need to have the flame adjusted correctly. The only issue might be on very small pans on the regular burners, but if I need to use a small pot, I use the small burner. Most of the time the smallest pan I use is 7 inches in diameter. I make caramel in it and have no problem with the sides of the pan over heating. I love the low end simmer on the Wolf DF. There is online a test, linked below, comparing the Wolf AG(not DF), Culinarian and Dacor simmer. They did not include Bluestar. I did the same test on my Wolf DF on all burners and only the simmer burner had a even the sightest area of discoloration the size of a fingernail-the regular burner had none. The proof is in the pudding though and I can hold mashed potatoes and rice and it will not burn. But here again if you get a Culinarian or Bluestar you can get a simmer plate if it is too hot. Some people also have a preference for sealed or unsealed for cleaning purposes. Either works for me. I really like the Wolf oven because of the different modes(conv. bake and roast) and being able to direct the heat and being able to use the digital thermometer. You can buy a digital thermometer though and you can manipulate the heat by hand if you need to. The Wolf or many electric ovens also have the third element(European or true convection) which is useful if you do a lot of multirack baking in keeping the heat even. I don't find a huge difference between gas and electric baking, contrary to what you usually hear. Some might find to be the temperature of the door important if you have small children or don't want to stand in front of a hot oven. the Wolf stays very cool. You might prefer one of the AG ovens if you want to use an infrared broiler and the Culinarian has the rotisserie feature. The Culinarian and Wolf DF are both self cleaning. You can read about many of the features on these ranges but you have to figure out what is useful for the way you cook. You may also want to consider service, both the quality and availability. I haven't had to have service on my range so can't comment. Next kitchen I might get two different thirty inch ranges. One of them would definitely be the Wolf DF though. Here is a link that might be useful: simmer test

Cpartist makes a good point, I think, about any Wolf appliance looking more modern than a house otherwise restored/renovated to a century old appearance. One question, though. When you spoke of "the more modern looking induction cook top," did you mean "stovetop" (i.e, you are looking at one of the 36" Wolf induction ranges) or did you mean you are considering a separate 36" induction cooktop with a separate wall oven or ovens? If your carriage house kitchen has the space for a separate cooktop and oven(s), then it seems to me that the induction would be less jarringly obvious than the big DF or induction range would be. As an aside, if you have not already done so, you might want to look into the ongoing issue with the flaking cobalt blue oven linings that sometimes happens with Wolf's electric ovens including those in the dual fuel and induction ranges. Might or might not deter you, but worth looking into if you were not already aware of that ongoing controversy.

Do you use a griddle now? I would consider an overlay griddle instead of a built in. The one I have(Royal industries)is 15”x23” and is about 50% bigger than a 2 burner built in. I have a Wolf range. It can be bigger because it is made of heavy aluminum which has much better heat transfer properties than steel so heats more evenly. It comes in bare aluminum which seasons over time and nonstick. With a built in you have about half of the power, somewhere around 15K BTUs. You can set the griddle anywhere you want or you have the flexibility of using all six burners. I have picked up my griddle and put it in the oven. You can take it to the sink to clean. These are Royal Industry overlays. They are pretty inexpensive. http://royalindustriesinc.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=4_22_48 Chef King makes a similar griddle out of steel. With the built in, you have a thermostat so you can repeatedly turn it in to a certain temperature and get that amount of heat. If you go this way, look how the different brands are built. Wolf uses an infrared burner to get a more even heat. The steel is twice as thick as BlueStar. BlueStar uses this burner on the RNB griddle. Thermador uses an aluminum griddle and an electric element.

@r, I thought I would chime in here to just say that I don’t think you are “obsessing“ at all regarding the use of knobs in this case. One of the most crucial variables in any kind of industrial design is the way we interface or interact with whatever the product is. Most of us utilize capacitive touch controls or infrared type touch controls on a constant basis with everything from iPads, smart phones, as well as any number of house appliances. But I would suggest that your instinct regarding cooktop or rangetop controls makes a lot of sense. Consider the difference in using a wall oven versus a cooktop. Most cooks in the kitchen can get the opportunity to wipe their hands in order to use touch capacitive controls on a wall oven. Of course, the case could be made that turning a simple dial, can be more intuitive, then going through a series of menus to get to where you want to go, since in the end, the mission of the wall oven has not really changed very much since our grandparents time which is essentially to bake the cake or roast the chicken. The reason I suspect that cook tops and range tops, as well as ranges are a particularly good candidate for knobs is due to the fact that the controls are often placed on a horizontal plane. Many people, especially those who are new to induction appliances for example, have learned a hard lesson as the very sensitive touch controls do not always take kindly to steam, water, droplets, and oil or gravy splatters. It is not hard to imagine why this is problematic because if you put any of these liquids on top of your smart phone screen, you would discover that the touch controls that works so beautifully such as the ones I’m using right now on my iPhone to create this post do not take kindly to having these substances on top of them. There are lots of examples of folks who have touch capacitive controls on these horizontal locations where the entire appliance is either shut down or thrown off its game. Of course, the majority of modern products that have knobs do not use the analog/mechanical controls of knobs of the past, but are in fact, “knobs“ that interface with micro control boards behind them. Still, there is an entire field of design that studies user interaction, and I do think that, at least, in some instances, such as with cooktops, knobs actually, do make a lot of sense. One can certainly debate where the best location for those knobs would be to avoid getting splatters on them since Cleaning knobs is not exactly, a fun time for most folks. Some people would assume that installing Touch Sensitive controls in all sorts of consumer products that once used knobs, levers, and buttons, is simply a design trend, and I’m sure there is truth to that. But a little voice inside also suggests to me, that one of the reasons they have moved away from knobs and especially the electromechanical kinds used in the past, is due to the cost of manufacturing. I do not have a data set to support this theory, but if you consider the labour and the bewildering amount of copper wiring that went into something such as a 1950 electric stove, some of which had lots of extra features, you can begin to imagine the cost savings of having a micro “motherboard“ taking the place of all that complex analogue electrical structure. I truly enjoy all of the benefits and possibilities that I have with my smart phone, laptop, iPads, etc. But I do think your instincts for knobs are not without merit, because sometimes, appliance designers attempt to answer questions that no one ever asked. My two. Cents 🤔.