[Blarg]

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Why are you bringing up weights vs machines when I am asking for a comparison of machines? But as long as you did bring up the subject, what about the fact that free weights don't stress you to the max through the total range of motion while some machines do?

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I brought it up because a lot of the feedback here was trying to alert you that you weren't on the best track in the first place. We were trying to change the subject because we thought it would be more helpful to steer you the right way than help you choose the lesser of two evils. You didn't seem to understand why that was, and we wanted you to understand that and consider alternatives. Perhaps being dead-set on getting one machine versus another is looking at your fitness needs in a way that won't get you maximum value, and I don't mean monetarily.

Regarding the utility of free weights and range of motion, it is machines that limit you, not free weights. You can get whatever range of motion you like with free weights, vastly more variety, and there are ways to make sure that you get fully challenged through the entire range of motions with free weights, too.

If you go to bodybuilding.com, and I think on t-nation.com too, you will find articles on using chains and bands. Bands have already been mentioned here. What they can do is keep it so that the end of a movement when lifting free weights, which is often fairly easy as most of the work is already done, remains hard.

With chains, you pile them on the floor on either side of the bar and tie one end to each end of a bar. As the bar goes up, you lift more and more chain. This adds weight as you go through the full range of the motion, and forces you to lift just as explosively at the end of, say, a bench press as at the beginning. Pile on however much chain you want, and it's easy to increment. You can do the same sort of thing with resistance bands. They actually get harder to stretch the more you stretch them, so as your bench press or military press or whatever goes up, the bands keep the movement hard throughout. Both methods are extremely easy to set up, versatile, and cheap, and work like gangbusters.

Importantly though, that's far from the whole story of why free weights are so good. The necessity to stabilize your weight when lifting free weights contributes to properly handling your body and utilizing tension and coordination effectively. Those things are needed for strength, and for athletic performance in general, practiced coordination of your body, from its base at the legs up, is extremely important. It's where the power in batting and boxing and tennis and even lifting things up around the house comes from. Machine-built muscles crafted in isolation can't be applied very well in real life, because the coordination to do so has not been discovered, much less drilled.

Additionally, there are frequent complaints with many machines about uneven tension as well. Those machines are gorgeous, and they do offer some value, but the value you give up is also a very important consideration. There are neither competive bodybuilders nor competitive strength athletes who base their training on machines; they are just an inferior solution.

Which is not to say you won't enjoy one and enjoy using one. But people are trying to discourage you from giving up too much to gain too little, and it really has nothing to do with price.