Digital BW, The Print

Mark,

I realize what I am about to suggest isn't in your budget, but thought I'd throw it
in, if only for your information:

The Sony Artisan is the current champ in what you are looking for. Four or
five years ago, the LaCie was still a major contender having taken over for Radius.
The reason you are finding prices so low for the LaCie is that it is old technology and,
for the price you mention, doesn't include calibration which is one of the major
benefits of the Artisan.

Whatever you end up buying, keep in mind that there is no point
 in buying a monitor of this class without a calibration kit. The Artisan comes with
one that is tuned to its phosphors and is more accurate than generic ones. 
The Lacie offers the Blue Eye Vision which adds another $400 (but doesn't run 
under OS X - somewhat of an abandoned product? ). In the end the total bill for the 
LaCie is about $800 vs $1500 for the Artisan.

If you buy a current generation calibrator (such as the Spyder etc) and add a decent 
monitor (such as the same Sony that the Artisan in built on), you may end up in the 
ballpark of the LaCie package but with more recent technology. And, yes, in that case
you'd have to make your own light shield from black foamcore! <g>

Just a thought....


Antonis


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "awahlster" 
<awahlster@a...> wrote:
> Ok I'm asking this here as this is the reason I'm buying a new 
> monitor. To do B&W and color printing ONLY no games no text no 
> nothing but photo work. I realised my budget wasn't even in the ball 
> park so I got a slightly bigger budget and the monitor that keeps 
> popping up in my new budget range is the 
> 
> LaCie electron19blue IV. 
> 
> 
> I have looked at a number of other ones based on specs but this one 
> keeps being recomended by users not the specs. SO I thought I would 
> ask here if anyone that is using this monitor would recomend it as 
> the best bag for my $400.00 budget as Gateway and a couple of others 
> have it it for under that with shipping included.
> 
> Anyone willing to recomend this one.
> 
> Thanks 
> 
> Mark W.