The Juki DDL-8700H is on the bench. It is new to the shop, and right now it is mostly a box of parts I haven't made decisions about yet.
I'm not going to review it. I haven't sewn enough on it to say anything useful, and I'd rather not pass off first impressions as findings. What I can say is why it's here: [maker: why you bought it]. It replaces [maker: what it replaced, or "nothing, it's an addition"].
Before any real cloth goes under the foot, the needle and thread need rechecking. A change of machine is a change of needle system, and my earlier setup doesn't carry over by default. The reasoning in Choosing needles for waxed canvas still applies, but I'll be starting from the machine's own requirements, not from habit. [maker: needle and thread you plan to start with]
The first real test is a seam like the ones in Two seams on one leg, since that's where a machine shows what it can do. [maker: confirm first project, and how it handles heavy fabric once you've tried it]
Until then, scrap pieces of the actual fabric are what I'll be sewing. I'll write down the settings that work and the ones that don't, and I'll admit now that I'll probably skip the writing-down at least once and regret it.
The rule for a new machine: test on scraps of the real cloth before you touch a cut piece.