Of the breadmakers I have used, none have so far topped the
Panasonic SD254 series. A couple of years back I tried the
Kenwood BM450 - that was huge in size (definitely failing the missus test of minimising usage space in the utility room by a long way) and gave me all sorts of problems in trying to produce a loaf of quality anywhere near that of the Panasonic.
This new Kenwood machine does go some way towards genuinely competing with the Panasonic, but is still not a "Panasonic killer". In size it is comparable with the SD254, in fact a little smaller in height which would enable me to store it underneath the wall cupboards which I cannot do with the SD254 (much to the chagrin of the missus). The time to produce a loaf has been reduced to no more than 3.5 hours on the longest programme, compared to 4 for the BM450 and 5 hours for the SD254 (for wholemeal or part-wholemeal - less for non-wholemeal). I have not had any troubles in baking a half decent loaf with this particular model like I did with the BM450; it works perfectly fine without the use of extra ingredients stipulated in the recipes such as skimmed milk powder and lemon juice which were never needed with the SD254, but the lack thereof seemed to cause loaf quality problems with the BM450.
And yet, it's still not quite there. The loaves produced are still not as soft and light as those of the SD254, but are denser, especially so for wholemeal loaves which, as produced by this machine, are quite "chewy". To some extent this is clearly by design, as although the largest loaf uses 600g of flour compared to 550g for the SD254, the pan is smaller by about 1cm in height along with losing some more volume in comparison due to the curved underside. Also, the loaf does not rise as much relative to the top of the pan as in the SD254; I suppose that part of this at least may be down to the shorter cycle time.
In conclusion, I'm not sure whether the gain of 1.5 hours less time to have a finished loaf is really enough to set off against the superior eating quality of the SD254's bread. Whilst Kenwood appear to be closing the gap, I still think that, assuming that their newer models are as good as the out-of-production SD254, Panasonic remains the manufacturer to go for.