Danby DWC172BL 1.8-Cu.Ft. 17-Bottle Counter-Top Wine Cooler, Black

Well, when the box arrived, it was all beat up. After I cut the straps, the box basically fell apart. The front door of the kegerator has dents in it. I assembled the unit per the instructions. The next day I fired it up. On the coldest setting it froze the inside. Several days later, I bought my first keg. Oh my, this is good! The beer is cold, it works great, and I am pleased so far. However, the tap faucet drips. I need to figure out why, but I will wait until I drain this keg! I am considering doing what some others has suggested, building a small fan assembly to help circulate the air, especially up into the tower. I feel it was a good deal and a nice investment for the football season! I just wish the door did not have dents. They are small cosmetic dents that do not effect the operation.***Update*** I have now had this Danby kegerator for a little over 2 years. I constructed a tower cooler using an old computer fan, small plastic box, some 1" flexible hose, basically as the plans called for from another user. It works good, it keeps the typical first pour foam issue at a minimum. Also, I decided to upgrade the leaking faucet to a Perlick faucet. Beverage factory.com sells them. So, after 2 years, I am still happy with the purchase. The beer stays good and cold, and it works great. I didn't mind the modifications, considering the selling price and quality. Keep in mind that this is a consumer version and not a professional, commercial version which sell for thousands of dollars more than this. Also, the small dents I mentioned in my original review: I covered them up with a magnetic beer sign. Cheers!

I like the lower rack for large/wide bottles, which is very useful. Just wish the door had a lock or a more secure closure mechanism. It stays cold -- can't get warmer than 55 degrees -- but that's fine with me. Cool wines are happy wines. Not for long-term storage due to low humidity, which is to be expected for this type of cooler or any refrigeration device -- this is not a product flaw. Good option for those seeking a "budget" wine cooler. No temperature/humidity gague or humidity control.

So far, we like the look of this and it does hold alot of wine! I think if if it holds up, it will be quite a good buy for the price. It seems to have everything we needninntwrms of temperature controls and nice shelving.

I have gone through several of the solid state wine coolers (no compressor) and at best they have been disappointing. They have had noisy fans and marginal electrical cooling circuitry that fritzed within 2 months of use and had to be replaced. The concept is great in a climate where the year-round inside house temperature is less than 15 degrees above than the desired wine temperature, but that's not often possible except maybe in the northern third of the US. The Danby was amazingly quiet even when first turned on. It makes significantly less noise than the microwave oven next to it. I will have to buy some internal thermometers to vet the temperature since the thermostat is very basic. A design with a couple of internal LED lights would have been nice, but I leave a LED flash light on top for viewing. This cooler is basically a standard refrigerator design from 30 years ago with a front glass door, but that has been a proven, durable design. Time will tell whether the refrigerator components last a reasonable time (ten years?), but I am sold on it now.

I did a bit of research before deciding to purchase the Danby. The price was right and reviews of other makes tended to say things like "stopped working after n months". Also, the thermoelectric technology on many of the other makes doesn't seem to be able to keep things cool if the temperature reaches above 85 or 90, which is quite easy to achieve in NY during the summer. The Danby has an old tech compressor which is time tested and should be reliable for years. The major problem is vibration. When it's running the thing vibrates the wine bottles excessively. This is bad for long term evolution of wine. But, if you have bottles for long term this thing is way too small to begin with. My long term stuff is in a wine storage facility. The other problem is the temperature control. Wine shoud be stored at 53-55deg. At the very, very lowest setting (knob turned to just above where it turns off) it varies between 49-53deg, as tested by a Taylor 1458 wireless temp/humidity gauge. A little too low but acceptable for short term, at least it's not too high which will ruin wine faster than anything. Humidity is also diffcult to maintain and is too low (30-40%) even with a bowl of water and wet paper towel. These faults make it useless for long term storage of wine (several years), but for short term (months) it should be fine.

I bought this and set it up on 2014. In 2017 it started to malfunction in that the temperature would swing way too low - close to freezing at times. Started to look for repair people in my mid-sized metro are and there are not any - at least that will bother to come to our downtown area! The ones that I have talked to all say that Danby is not a very good product as if to say "move on to a better brand". So, I'm disappointed. It worked well for a few years but this is a pretty significant purchase to break and not be able to fix after 3 years. Don't fall for this one!