Love, Love, LOVE Bunn! They are the best brand of coffee maker on the market today, and while they are by no means cheap, they are well worth the price. My family has used them for years and have never had a problem with the exception of breaking a pot once (which was easily replaced) and having a rubber o-ring break once (the pot had been passed through from my grandmother, to my mother, to myself... and still works!). Plus coffee is all I tend to drink and it makes a pot in about 60 seconds and it's hotter than any other coffee maker I have EVER tried. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

I bought the first Bunn home model when it came out many, many years ago, the one with the funny little rounded carafe. I bought a second one in the 90's when that one died; my sister is still using it. I purchased this Thermo-Fresh around 3 years ago when I started working a lot out of my home office. My two conventional Bunn pots got too hot on the burner and would start tasting burned after an hour or so. I wanted a pot that would not only allow me to drink off the same pot for several hours, but would also travel to my desk.

This pot is exactly like the home Bunn except that the burner heater and glass carafe have been replaced with a Nissan stainless steel carafe. Those familiar with Bunn know that they keep a pot of water hot and ready in the tower behind the carafe. When one pours a new pot of water into the top, that forces the hot water from the tower into the grounds. This is why it is so much faster than a conventional drip maker.

What's the drawback? Unlike a restaurant or coffee shop, most of us make one pot per day. That means that when one makes coffee every morning, the coffee is being made with with day-old water. If you think this makes no difference, draw a glass of water and leave it sitting on your counter for 24 hours, then taste it. This is not an issue in a commercial setting where many will make a fresh pot each hour. How important this is to your palate is up to you.

The Bunn does require its own type of maintenance. There is a long flexible cable provided that has to be threaded up into the pot from below to clean the water channel. I have found that vinegar cleans the pot better than the powders made for drip makers. Of course, one has to run a few pots of water through afterward to get all the vinegar out of the tower.

So why only 3 stars? The carafe. Unlike multiple other reviewers, I never had leakage at all. Perhaps lucky. My problem is that unless drunk very quickly, the carafe simply doesn't do a good job at keeping the coffee hot. This is not particular to Bunn; Krups, GE, Mr. Coffee, any brand that uses a metallic carafe will have the same problem. Though it is delightful that one can drop this s.s. carafe without breaking it, these are nowhere near as efficient as the classic glass liner. Even with never taking the top off, within an hour or so the coffee would require a nuke in the microwave to get it decently hot again. Back in the 80's I had an Oster drip pot with a thermal carafe. I used it the same way--to brew and then park on my desk. The difference was, the Oster had a glass-lined vacuum carafe like the traditional Thermos. That carafe would keep the coffee hot a minimum of 2 hours before requiring reheating. Trouble was, one day after a few years I dropped the carafe which ended its days. Now, one way to get these metal carafes to keep the coffee hot longer is to preheat the carafe with hot water. But doesn't that defeat its purpose, not to mention the speed advantage of the Bunn? Keep in mind I don't like coffee near-boiling, nothing like it. But I do like it hotter than lukewarm.

I still own this Bunn, and occasionally if I am entertaining I'll pull it out and use it. After all, it did cost nearly $150. It is far from my favorite pot, though, and I wouldn't buy it again. Not because it has any defects other than its basic design. For the same reason, I wouldn't purchase any of its competitors with a metal carafe. This may or may not be important to anyone reading this review, but if one likes consistently hot coffee over a fairly short period of time (30 min. or less), one might give it a second thought.

Great and fast coffee maker, but the carafe leaks like crazy every time I pour it. I have tried washing it with everything under the sun, but it still leaks.

The Bunn BTX-B makes great coffee because the temperature of the heated water is greater than other makes and models. The only drawback is that you have to leave it on all the time (other than vacations) unless you want to wait 15 minutes for it to heat the water each day before using. This makes it an energy vampire but....the coffee is very good.

When I received my Bunn BTX-B coffee maker, it had the pictured carafe. Out of the box the carafe leaked like a sieve, as many others have described previously.

I called Bunn, and they very quickly sent out a new carafe which has been completely redesigned. It does not leak, pours much faster, and is a far better looking carafe. The lid is much smaller, there is no belly band, it seems taller and smaller (but still holds 10 cups), and the overall quality of the new carafe is what I would have expected from Bunn. The Bunn people told me that the carafe was redesigned in April, but nobody seems to be offering this coffee maker with the new carafe. I guess you have to call.

We have the high-altitude version- BTX-B (D). If you live at 5000 ft or above, look for this version.

Maybe I missed it in the description, but this is a mini electric hot water heater. I try to cut power usage where I can, and knowing that this thing has to be on all the time to keep the water hot was disappointing. Granted, it doesn't draw much power, but it all adds up. I take a half star off for that.

I take another half star off because one must use special bunn filters because standard filters are too short. The coffee grounds will spill over standard filters, De-Caff is especially bad for this. They do say they can send me a free low pressure nozzle to fix this problem, but I wonder if it would then slow down the brew time and, thus, affect the flavor of the coffee?

Another thing I'm not wild about is the "switch" to start brewing. This is simply the lid where the water goes. It is a habit to fill the tank and close the lid in one motion, but that will trigger it to start brewing instantly, before you can get the carafe in place. I'd much rather have a front mounted start button.

That all said, I am very very happy with this. The coffee is excellent and I use very cheap coffee. It is far less bitter than my old pot. It is easy to use and very fast. The water does not get to 200 degrees though. Mine gets to 189. Still, it is much better than average coffee makers.

The carafe is great as well. No fragile glass liner and it works better than those anyway.

Another nice feature about this coffee maker is you can add half a carafe or even a travel mug's volume of water and it will only brew that volume of coffee. This is very nice when you don't want a full carafe. I normally fill it about 2/3rds full.

Was it worth the price? Probably not, unless you really really are picky about your coffee. However, I am not disappointed in my purchase. It should be maybe $50 less in my opinion, but then again, everything seems too expensive lately so go figure.