Digital BW, The Print

Ernst, a couple of major points here. The Z is certainly a fine
printer, no question.
First of all, this thread began with requesting advice about a used
9000, then 9500, as an economical B&W purchase. One can certainly not
put the few thousand dollars for a Z into the same discussion as the
few hundred mentioned for a used 9xxx.
Secondly, even though a larger dot quad print can still hold up as a
thing of beauty, no one recommended they look for an older quad set to
go with. Certainly these days a smaller dot, or variable dot, is a
better choice for quads. A 6K approach mentioned by both myself and
Paul on one of these printers will give wonderful results with little
work, setup, or cost, and newer ink sets put the older quads sets
under the table when it comes to nozzle performance. I have a K7 7800
test printer that sits for weeks sometimes, and starts right up perfectly.

I have a print of an image made from the Z3100, and also with a 10k
and the Cone NK6 inkset in front of me right now.
Other than a barely perceptable increase in dmax with the Z, the 10K
K6 print is clearly better. Less apparent mechanical pattern and dots,
smoother, more represented subtle grays, uniform hues as opposed to
the reddish Z shadows, etc..
I haver a lot of good HP output here to see, quad, tones RGB, matte
and gloss. The Z is a beautiful printer and makes wonderful out of the
box B&W, but these new mono sets and approaches have come a long long
way from the old large fixed dot quads.

I have no particular reverence for an old 9xxx beast, but for a
dedicated B&W printer for (probably) under $500 it's going to be very
very hard to beat, or even match, for any amount of money.
Tyler

 --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Ernst Dinkla
<edinkla@...> wrote:
>
> Greg wrote:
> 
> > And because they are tanks that will probably continue to print long 
> > after some of the newer models fail. The easy head replacement on the 
> > HP Z series would be way better for a big commercial place where time 
> > is money, and down time costs a lot.
> 
> 
> Greg,
> 
> The two printers can not be compared in any environment. 
> Whether the Z3100 is used day in day out or stays idle for 
> three weeks the moment you start it up it will print and no 
> heads have been replaced on the one here in the 18 months of 
> intermittent use. I still have a 9000 quad and a 10000 and I 
> am very familiar with their behaviour.
> 
> The actual tank in the Epson family is the 10000 but when it 
> gets in trouble you face costs like replacing a head of 
> about a 1000 $ (but here the costs are more like 1200 Euro). 
> There's one in that state here now. There's no printer as 
> easy to repair as the 9000 but it is also one that needs 
> more maintenance. Easy except the aligning of two heads 
> instead of one on the more recent models.
> 
> I have followed this thread for a time and thought the 7000 
> up to 9500 were almost made holy in the discussion. I do not 
> share that feeling and think that if someone needs a 
> secondhand model he may be better off with more recent 
> single head models like the 7600 9600 as long as heads etc 
> are available directly from the distributors. Epson changed 
> its policy on any part purchase in the US.
> 
> It is that I have quad prints on the wall of both the Z3100 
> and the 9000 and though I like the 9000 ones as much there's 
> a definite difference. Smoothness, detail and Dmax are all 
> better on the new printer. The 9000 was driven by QTR on its 
> highest resolution. The Z3100 total 4000 nozzle number on 
> the 4 quad heads is the reason for that, Joe of Bowhaus has 
> it right. It is more than two years ago that I suggested to 
> use more heads for BO printing on Epson desktop models as it 
> forced the printer to smaller droplets and more nozzles, the 
> HP and Canon models showed that that idea can be stretched 
> even further.
> 
> -- 
> Met vriendelijke groeten,  Ernst
> 
> 
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