Digital BW, The Print

I'll contribute a bit to this thread, too.  I've used the Lyson Quad Blacks 
in cartridges in my S9000 a few times over the past few months (swapped 
them for the color carts a couple of times since I don't have a spare print 
head or a separate dedicated color printer (except an old Epson 860 which 
takes >10 minutes to do an 8x10, so I avoid using it when I can.))  I'm on 
my second "set" of cartridges, and they are indeed very expensive things, 
but I just got a full set of the bulk inks (6 bottles) from Marrutt 
in  England last week - ordered Tuesday on line, and the box arrived in the 
mail on Saturday in the middle of the US.  Actual charge to my VISA was 
$161 (shipping is included in the price of the inks.)  This makes for some 
very reasonably priced ink per print, delivered very quickly.  I now have a 
set of filled virgin carts just waiting for the "commercial" models to run dry.

My observations are that in daylight, Quad Black prints on Ilford Classic 
Gloss are dead neutral, while in incandescent they have a slightly magenta 
cast, which varies somewhat with the particular light bulb illuminating 
them.  However, the change is not particularly unpleasant (to me, at least) 
and are certainly no worse that the shift I see in the B&W prints I did 
last Christmas using OEM color inks (those prints look more neutral under 
tungsten, for which I tried to balance them, but they have a somewhat 
greenish tone in daylight, but not uniformly so - some but not all of them 
are starting to show a shift in tone in some areas of the print.)  I have 
had absolutely no ink clogging issues with the Lyson - never anything but a 
perfect nozzle check, although these were always with Lyson brand 
cartridges, and it remains to be seen whether my refills are as reliable.

I've decided to use the Ilford Classic Gloss paper for my volume production 
(I do 800-1000 prints at Christmas, that get bound into 9 different books 
for different relatives - have done this for decades with chemical prints, 
last year did half and half chemical/digital, and this year will be all 
digital).  It is reasonably priced, and made even more so by being 
available in 250 sheet boxes.  Lyson papers are supposedly going to be 
available in large boxes as well, but I haven't seen any prices yet, and 
frankly I like the look of the ink on the Ilford paper better than on the 
Lyson Pro Gloss paper.  I have not yet seen a Quad Black print on the Lyson 
Monochrome Gloss paper, as I haven't been able to find any of that in the 
US yet.  The Ilford paper does take some time to dry - I just hang a print 
up by the corner with a clothes pin on a wire in my darkroom, just like I 
used to do with RC chemical prints.

Those are my thoughts and experience for now.

Cheers,
Kip