Capital is a good choice - Viking gets mixed reviews at best. Also check out Wolf and DCS.

If you're looking in that price range, you might as well check out the BlueStar ranges. Check this link and review the videos:
http://www.eurostoves.com/blue-star-a/137.htm

We have also been looking for a new gas range and considered the same ones that you have (GE and KA). Initially, I thought that sealed burners were the way to go. Now, I prefer open burners. Sadly, only a few mfgrs make open burner ranges.

From what I've read here, the perfect range does not exist.

We haven't decided yet, but I lean towards the BlueStar 30" RNB.

Speedlever, why do you prefer open burners? I actually started to look at the BlueStar but the salesman whisked me away by saying the open burners are a nightmare to clean.

As for price, where we looked, the KA was over $2K less than the Viking, $1K less than the Capital. And we also need a refrigerator and dishwasher. But I do want a good stove most of all!

Your salesman is mistaken (or has no clue what he is talking about) when it comes to cleaning open burner. i think in the videos we produced it shows its not difficult to clean at all.

If capital is your chosen route you could check this out from a value perspective.

http://www.eurostoves.com/Capital_GCR304_Captial_PSVH30_p/1002.htm

Salespeople typically discourage open burners because either they're ignorant, or because they don't have any to sell since there are no longer many open burner ranges/rangetops being made. Maybe if more people understood the benefits of open burners, they'd ask for them, and manufacturers would start making them again to meet the demand. I'm linking a thread below about sealed vs. open burners.

BTW, I don't know your budget, but Wolf makes a "semi-open" burner range which is quite good. It has better fit and finish than Bluestar IMHO, and a large network in case you need repairs.

Thread about Open or sealed burners

Eurostoves has a wonderful video about cleaning open burners:
Click Video Button, and it's the third one

ammom,

If you follow the rest of the posts and watch the referenced videos, you'll understand why I now prefer open burners. As Trevor said in the above referenced link, open burners have better heat distribution compared to sealed burners.

Yes, you can cook on either one just fine. But I'm convinced that the open burner is a better design and I like the way they clean up. We have sealed burners now and have that gunky brown ring around the burners that is so difficult to remove.

Thank you all so much. I watched the videos and now have an open mind about the open burners! It makes total sense.

We are going to look at the Blue Star this weekend. I just hope it's not out of our budget. We were trying to stay under $3,000 (at least my husband was!) The salesman quoted us just under $3K for the Capital which seems like a very good price for that range..although it's the 4 burner manual clean.

I don't see a downside to manual clean. We've never used the automatic clean cycle on our current oven. Good luck keeping it under $3k.

The downside to the autoclean ovens is that the high temps needed to cook the oven clean sometimes cook the electronics too.

We've had to replace some of the electronics on our current range before... and are getting another F1 fail msg. This is what we repaired about 5 years ago and now parts are becoming hard to find... ergo our search for a new range.

So I'm a bit electronics shy when it comes to a range and heat.

Would somebody please convince me that I'm wrong?

Here's a thread that discusses Bluestar non-self-cleaning

Here is a link that might be useful: Thread about Bluestar non Self-Cleaning