QTR-Quadtone RIP

Dear all,

I've followed Mike's advice and developed a few profiles for Epson's ABW driver using 
CreateICC and a borrowed Eye-one densitometer. The results on HFAP and Epson 
Semigloss are very good, with the latter giving a particularly good dmax of about 2.4 with 
the R2400 and photo black ink.

However, following the same procedure with the matt black ink on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag, 
I could only get lacklustre prints with a paltry dmax of about 1.6. I was very suprised, 
since colour prints on this paper made with the R2400 have good contrast and appear to 
have a reasonable black. I'm pretty sure that I'm not doing anything wrong. So the 
questions are:

* Should I expect a low dmax on photo rag with matt black on the R2400, printing using 
the ABW driver?

* If so, are results any better by using Quadtone RIP?

* Are there other "fine art" papers out there with a look and feel similar to photo rag that 
give a better dmax on the R2400?

Thanks

Guy