Digital BW, The Print

On Thursday, August 9, 2001, at 11:55  AM, frank@... 
wrote:

> when I compare the same file on each printer side by side (cone
> system), I'm hard pressed to say the 7000 is significantly better.

ConeTech has often stated that there is very little difference in print 
quality between *any* Epson printers, as visible to the naked 
(un-louped) eye.

What you're paying more (or less) for is quality of paper feeding (which 
is related to such things as accurate registration), potential print 
sizes, speed, "cloggability" of the heads, etc.  (And support -- I 
*hate* that I have to use obsolete & mostly unsupported printers, or pay 
*lots* for the high-end.)

I've been finding that although my 1160 prints wonderfully, trying to 
use it as a "production" printer (in my case, about seventy-five 13x19 
sheets in one weekend) severely taxed it (clogs, paper jams, dust 
build-up), to the point where I'm considering a higher-end printer.

> Incidently, I just bought an 1160 and have not set it up yet for Piezo,
> but I was disappointed to hear that you think the 3000 is superior. I
> thought I was buying "state of the art" for Piezo work.  The 3000 must
> have the longest production run of any Epson printer.

It seems that it depends a lot on what you expect to see.  Cone actually 
recommends the 1160 most widely -- I think because it's got decent 
quality, speed, and cost, yet isn't as high-duty as the 3000 or 7000.

Don't stress too much about it yet.  Just print, and evaluate on your 
own.  And there's a lot to do with scanning & photoshop work that helps 
much more than subtle printer differences....

john