This dehydrator rocks. I use it to make raw foods such as crackers & crusts and to dry sprouted seeds and nuts. It has worked well for my needs, feeding 2 people. The 4-tray unit may be too small for a family doing a lot of dehydrating. This unit doesn't have a timer. That's no problem, though. I just plug it into a grounded heavy-duty appliance timer. For the raw foodist, I recommend the Excalibur's square shaped drying surface design over the the round shaped dehydrators. I haven't purchased the rather pricey ParaFlexx sheets, but they would be handy for dehydrating things like spreads, yogurt, runny things, & thin crackers. The 4-tray unit dimensions are 16 1/2"L X 13"W X 6"H (Sorry, I'm metric illiterate). All dehydrator fans are going to make noise. I do not consider the 4-tray unit to be loud.

I left a review for this product back in March but somehow it was moved to another listing. I'll attempt leaving the review again with the hopes of saving another unsuspecting buyer from wasting his/her money:

I don't have a lot of space and thought that this 4 tray dehydrator would be the perfect solution. This thing is JUNK!!! The temperature control is completely inaccurate. On top of that, it only worked about 10 times before the heat failed completely. I tried the reset instructions to no avail. I then called the company and they made some excuse about the "rare" need for fuse replacement. The rep convinced me that it was a fluke and that the machine would most likely never need another fuse. I wanted to protect my investment so decided to chance it. It cost about $20 for the fuse/shipping. Installation instructions were fairly straight forward though it took some hassle to get everything back in place. I used the machine about 8-10 more times before it died again... Read more

Been using this for a few months so far, and couldn't be happier. I love beef jerky as an everyday snack, but it can get expensive buying it at the store all the time. A coworker is big on do it yourself foods and told me how to make jerky at home and decided to give it a try. At first I was doing it in the oven, which worked decently, but he kept telling me about his Excalibur and how great it was. So I decided to throw down the money, and very happy I did.

He had the 9 try version and that just seemed like way too much, which it would have been. I found this 4 tray and the price was pretty good at $100. I can do about 2 1/2 pounds at a time which is perfect. The Excalibur is so straight forward and easy to use. Theres no On/Off switch, so just plug it in and it turns on. The temperature dial even shows the type of foods you should be using at each temperature. (ex 155:meat, fish, 125:vegetables) This is good if you are not sure what to use. There is no timer, which is ok... Read more