Digital BW, The Print

Hi,

I printed a picture with my 2200 UT7 today that has a large area of 
artifically created gradient (black to 50% grey).

What i noticed (and its not subtle) is that with all of the curves 
that i tried for enhanced matt... there is banding (with all curves) 
throuout the region of 70% (grey) to 100% (black)... the banding is 
in the form of uneven gradients (banding pattern varies between 
curves).  its only noticible just in that region and once it gets to 
the lighter gradient areas, it looks fine.  Is this to be expected 
for this system? or am i doing something wrong?

I use spyder optical to calibrate my monitor, i edit the image in 16 
bit, the gradient is created with photoshop's gradient tool.  The 
image is in AdobeRGB space and I printed with photoshop set to print 
with "same as source".

Thanks!
Ray