Digital BW, The Print

There's been considerable talk about the enticing new printers from
Epson's competitors, and various OEM solutions from these and the
latest generation Epsons with regard to B&W printing capability. I
can't possibly count the number of conversations I've had in the last
6 months on and off line about this, the basic tone being- there's no
advantage to monochromatic inksets and product developers for the
masses finally have my fine print aesthetic best interests at heart.
What has struck me as distinctly odd is that most people involved in
staying current about high end B&W ink printing know better. That may
be one reason why they don't take part in these discussions, they are
irrelevant to them. For some strange reason I'm not that smart, I'm
part of this community and chose to remain for now...
I work with UCK3s every day, with a 9800, rgb driver, or RIP. I use it
for color, and monochrome outside the gamut of the mono inksets here.
I'm fully aware of what it can do, and can't. In fact, even for mono
(strong sepia, for example) the epson driver is less adequate here, we
make special ink setups and profiles for that in the RIP.
Anyway, take a look here-

http://tylerboley.com/info/RGB_Quad.jpg

these are sections about .8" high, one from the 9800 UCK3 w/ RGB
driver and custom profile on HPR, the other a straight quad on the
9600, also HPR. Both at 1440, drum scanned at 2000 dpi and downsized
to 1000dpi for posting here. 4000 dpi would have described the dots
better and the difference would have been greater.
The difference is obvious. Clearly there is photographic information
in the file that the RGB driver operating normally is incapable of
describing on paper. Not only resolution details, but levels of gray
and tonal subtleties simply non-existent in one and not the other. To
me, this constitutes "better". No question. That's what we want from
output systems, accurate translation of data to the paper, subjective
issues temporarily aside.
I can't afford to constantly upgrade, I'm a very small business sole
proprietor. So this is not even the current mono ink state of the art,
I'm not  touting that or even my setup. If this was a well done K7 or
K6 (of any brand), particularly at 2880, the difference would be even
more striking.
Can you see the difference by eye, is this dishonest? You can see it,
clearly, and my eyes are old. One looks like large format, the other
medium or fine grain 35mm, these are about 6.5 x 9" prints from 5x7
drum scanned neg. I've not shown any sky, grainy in one and cream in
the other. But you shouldn't believe stuff like that, it's just words.
If you think these differences are relevant to you, look into them
yourself.

Here 's what I'm NOT talking about-
You should or should not care about this difference, be willing to pay
for it, or that it will be relevant to your style or source data.
That you should prefer any particular method. I rarely even mention my
setup on list, I have no interest in talking anyone into anything.

Here's what I AM talking about-
From a purely technical standpoint, writing complex and nuanced
monochrome data to paper, more grays and/or blacks than currently
available from OEM solutions (at least the Epson K3s) are still
better. Demonstrably and significantly. I've heard the HP dither is
more random and photographic, but the Canon coarser, what those would
do in this test remains to be seen.
Slightly surprised we have to go back and demonstrate this again,
actually. OK, slithering back into my cave... well, on the road actually.
Tyler