After struggling with a crappy upright for years, and a hand-me-down ancient Hoover canister for even more years, the Miele Olympus is a breath of fresh air. Literally.
When I began to notice that the time I spent vacuuming had doubled because the old Hoover spat out so much fine particulate matter that the whole house was eternally covered in dust, I began my ploy for marketing this expensive piece of German machinery to my significant other. He eventually conceded, and I've even caught him red-handed as he sneaks in a vacuuming session here or there - just for fun. And when you're really cleaning things, it does make vacuuming fun. Almost.
I went to our local store, tested one out, decided that the main floor attachment it comes with is rather shabby, added a Parquet Floor Brush (at an insane 75% off discount) and a HEPA filter, and I was on my way.
This is one of the best features of the Miele vacuums. The all have the same motor, and the same suction power. Most of them (save for the cool-looking, wonderfully equipped, but Power Brush-incompatible Neptune) can be almost endlessly upgraded. The Olympus, while being a very bare-bones machine straight out of the box, can be upgraded with the far-superior horse-hair attachments (it comes with synthetics), can be upgraded with a (rather expensive, but really neat) Turbo Brush, which rotates with the wind created by the awesome suction, or you can do one better and upgrade the Olympus to a power brush, making it essentially the same machine as the Titan. What I love about this, is that you can buy the parts as you need them - and perhaps more importantly, for many of us - as you can afford them, rather than plunking down a whopping $600 or more in one fell swoop.
Furthermore, you can upgrade the filtration system from the 'Clean Air' which is essentially a thin piece of cloth, to the HEPA, which filters out even more particulates - for those of us with allergies - and has deodorizing charcoal. Not that you'd need it, necessarily. One look at the Miele bags, which filter before the air ever reaches this secondary filtration system, and it's immediately clear there's not too much that could make it through these dual barriers. The bags are multi-layered thick material, and each comes with a spring-loaded valve, into which the hose plugs. Thus when you turn off the machine or go to replace the bag, the bag is already sealed off and no dust can escape. I think that's right fancy.
The vacuum itself comes with 6 power settings, each indicated by a little image of what surface they are appropriate for vacuuming. The lowest is a dusting setting, the last three are hard wood floors/tile, short nap rugs, and high pile carpeting. The vacuums motor starts up slowly, and this has taken some getting used to, because I'm used to vacuum motors just roaring to life. Even once the motor is going full-tilt, it's amazingly quiet. On the lower settings, it's like a whisper, at the higher settings it's at least half the volume I've come to expect from a vacuum. Most of the noise of the vacuum actually comes from the speed with which the wind travels through the tunnel. Depending on the surface you're vacuuming, the attachment you're using, and the setting, this can be quite loud and high-pitched.
But, as one might expect the suction is amazing. After the trial run with this vacuum, I realized that even when I've mopped in the past, our floors have never felt so clean, so free of debris. There are places in our house, along the baseboards, which I just assumed were discolored from 50-odd years of dust, and the Miele sucked the dust right out. Voila! I use the crappy floor attachment to do out area rugs (we have predominantly hard-wood floors and tile) and the rugs are cleaner than ever. It's a bit of a battle, without the power brush, to keep the suction needed to pull the dirt up from trying to consume the edges of the rugs. But with no power brush, it's not like it mangles them or anything.
The canister itself glides smoothly along the floor. There are places for each of the three dusting/furniture attachments around the beginning of the hose to allow easy transition from one attachment to another, and another location on the rear for when I need to store the parquet floor brush. The latter is less of a help, because removing the attachment often triggers the cord rewind. And speaking of the cord, it is about 6' too short. I do miss the longer cord from the old Hoover.
The two last things of note are that the tubing of the Miele is crush-proof, so if you're a klutz and occasionally step on it (like me!) it won't get all mangled up. The hose can also be removed, as can every other individual part. Thus you can effectively dislodge accidental objects - like those pesky baby socks that always seem to hide under the sofa in an evil plot to ruin my day. The old Hoover made it impossible to retrieve such objects, once they became lodged, without the help of a garden hose. And another thing that matters a great deal to me is that the air discharges through the top of the machine, so it doesn't stir up dust bunnies before you make your way over to them with the hose. Every single detail of this vacuum has been thought out carefully and effectively executed. I guess that's what you get when you buy from a company who makes a product to last, without foreign slave labor, whose workers are unionized, and paid living wages. You'd think America would do well to take a lesson from modern-day Germany.
We've had this machine a few months now, and have used it more than once per week. The only significant drawback is the cord. Everything else is overwhelmingly positive. It's made the job of cleaning a messy house of toddlers a more manageable, less stressful task, and you can't even put a dollar amount on the value of that. It is pricey. But maybe that's just because I've become so unaccustomed to paying the 'real cost' of a well-made item. Cheap junk from China will spoil you that way. So, bottom line: I think its been worth every penny and then some.
(13 customers reviews)
Customers Rating=5.0 / 5.0
More Detail For Miele S2 Olympus Canister Vacuum Cleaner Model S2120
- Deluxe Combination Rug / Floor Tool
- New VarioClipTM conveniently store on-board attachments either on the top of the hose, or on base of the hose
- Variable Speed Motor Control by Rotary Dial
- Standard Super-Air Clean Filtration - HEPA Filter Optional
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