Soleus Air JC-128E 45 Bottles Wine Cooler

Cheap price, cheap quality.

By RJ  Apr 12, 2008 | 1 out of 1 found this Soleus Air JC-128E 45 Bottles Wine Cooler review helpful

Pros: Price, capacity

Cons: Very noisy, very cheaply made.

Saw this on sale at a local electronics superstore for $179. Pretty amazing price for a 45 bottle wine cooler. I wasn't expecting much in terms of quality, but it didn't even live up to my low expectations. Other than price (for the capacit...y) there really isn't much to recommend about this unit. This is made mostly from plastic. There is very little metal in the construction. The demo unit in the store was pretty beat up, with lots of scratches. I would expect it to look pretty beat up rather quickly even in a home. Do not put this out as a showpiece - tuck it away in the corner of an unused bedroom. The quality issues include: - the plastic "label" surrounding and covering the temperature controls was peeling off immediately after opening the box. - this is a VERY noisy unit. I have two other wine coolers (Marvel and Vinotemp) and this is quite literally 3x or 4x more noisy. Not a slight hum, but a full-on mechanical chugging. It is in a back bedroom and I can hear it from down the hall even with the bedroom door closed. Like virtually any other wine cooler unit, the capacity rating is very generous. It might hold 45 bottles if they are all shaped with narrow bottoms and narrow necks. Have Pinot? Or Rhone wines? These are typically wide bottom and narrow neck. Good luck getting more than 40 bottles in here. Two of the five 7-bottle shelves will really only hold six bottles. The 10-bottle bottom rack really only holds eight bottles. The digital temperature read-out is off by about 5 degrees. Checking with a real thermostat, the actual temperature is 62 when the wine cooler unit is set to 57. This unit cycles very often. I'd say it on 25% of the time in a house that is in the low 70's. If you desperately need a medium capacity wine cooler (as a 2nd or 3rd unit), have only $200 to spend, and don't mind the noise... go ahead. Otherwise.... step up to a nicer unit. Read more Less