I have had several types of ice cream makers from attachments to free standing separate appliances.  I found that I never used them as they all needed to have the required bowl frozen in advance and, as I did not have room to keep the bowl in my freezer, the required hours then needed to freeze the bowl made me drop the idea of making ice cream.  With the inclusion of the compressor feature in the Cuisinart unit, no pre-freeze is needed, and making ice cream and other frozen treats is now something I can do whenever I want. The machine is relatively quiet and simple to use and it makes fantastic frozen desserts. What I like best is that I can determine exactly what is put into the mix and avoid either preservatives or artificial additives as well as choose to make a non-dairy or non-egg type of frozen dessert.  All of the recipes I have come out quite well in this machine.  Overall, a real winner!