Digital BW, The Print

Kemal Delic wrote:

> Ernst,
> 
> Would you sell your Epson 9000 just because of sharpness
> difference? I compared the tests on: 
> 
>  http://harrington.com/dotscans/dotsdots.html 
> 
> and I couldn't se the difference between Epson 7500/9000 and
> Epson 7600.
> 
> This week I am going  to pick up a very little used Epson 9000.
> It shall cost me 7500 swedish kronas ( $1000 ),  including my
> petrol costs. I want to use it for quadtone printing. I am worrying
> now, am I doing something wrong?
> 
> Regards,
> Kemal

Kemal,

Nothing to worry about.  But be careful with the ink change that 
no dye/UT contamination happens.

First of all it isn't my 9000 and my 9600.  I am happy with my 
9000 loaded with UT VM and the way I can drive it now with the 
Wasatch SoftRIP and I'm expecting even better results with Qimage 
+ QTR.  My customers love the results so far. I have no 9600 
either and do not intend to buy one, instead I have bought a 
secondhand 10000 for color.

My friend has far more work and used to print with three 9000's. 
He now has two 9600's + one 9000 converted to UT VM.
The last was only used with Paul's curves from PhotoShop and not 
yet with QTR + Qimage so he hasn't compared output of the 9600 
with the same driver as he used on the 9600. It could well be 
that the 9000 performs as good or better with QTR but then he has 
two printers for that kind of work while the need for B&W doesn't 
require more than one. It isn't clear yet what he will do but he 
still has the two other 9000's with color inks that aren't used 
often either. More of a luxury problem.

So a completely different situation to mine or yours and not yet 
based on a checked quality difference either.

The price you're paying is nice if I compare it to a 9000 sold 
here not long ago. 2000 Euro, but that one had one of my CIS 
systems on it.

Ernst