Unlike John, I find that the DTC-975’s biggest advantage when compared to competing models is that it more effectively seals in heat so well that it really doesn’t need the carafe to be preheated with hot water prior to brewing. The coffee will keep warm as long as it is at least half full. The caveat is that the last cup will cool down faster just because most of the carafe is empty. This would be true of any coffeemaker with an insulated stainless steel decanter, however.

The biggest drawback to this type of coffeemaker, in my experience, is that the stainless steel carafe is hard to clean. The opening on this model won’t let anything bigger than a bottle brush inside. And unlike glass the inside of a stainless carafe doesn’t deodorize with cleaning. No matter how much baking soda, vinegar and dish soap I use it still smells of coffee from the initial use onward. I question how fresh the coffee will taste after a year or two of this when there is no way to completely get the odors of old coffee to stop clinging to the metal lining. I think these thermal carafes should be lined with glass just like an Air Pot or a normal thermal carafe that you buy separately for keeping coffee hot. Glass doesn’t react or retain odors the way stainless steel seemingly does. Yet you see people saying the coffee is so much better when brewed into a stainless steel thermal carafe because it doesn’t bake on a warming plate. Well, yes and no. Personally, I feel this type of coffeemaker is a better solution not for improved taste but for those who seek a carafe that is less likely to break (for the accident prone who don’t want the glass around), and secondarily for those who want to save electricity and/or eliminate the risk of the electrical warming plate malfunctioning, burning pets or small children or leading to a fire hazard. As for taste, however, you really want to consume the coffee that brews into a thermal decanter within one hour just like you would with any other coffeemaker. That is because an hour or less is the optimum timeframe for best taste. After that it is going to degrade whether the source of warming is a hot plate or the trapped heat inside a thermal carafe. That’s my 2¢ anyhow.