We set up the 9900 Friday morning. It took about 2-1/2 hours to get it unpacked and charged up. Definitely heavier and even though Epson recommends four people to lift it on the stand, we did it with two and one to guide the stand.
For those who have used older large format Epsons, there are some new things to get used to. Paper loading is completely different and not at all intuitive. You really do have to read the manual, and even doing that I still needed a call to Epson to get it sorted out. I was told that the printer shipped with the smallest 150ml size carts, but that's wrong. It's 110 ml carts to start, and the Light Black was lowest after charging. The LCD panel is full color now and has more functionality including controlling paper loading and removal. Paper spindles are gone too, replaced by a plastic quick release spool end that locks into teeth on a plastic track at any width necessary. The jury is still out for me on whether I like the old or the new better.
The biggest surprise was that there is still a procedure required to switch from Photo to Matte black and back. Apparently those two black inks still share a common print head but the switching mechanism is at the head itself, making the ink loss minimal - 1.2 ml in one direction and 3.4 ml going the other way. According to and Epson tech support the variance there is because a slight contamination can be tolerated on one direction but not the other. The switch takes 2-3 minutes which is much better than the 15 or so before. But this all begs the question - if they are redesigning from the ground up, why not just go all the way and design a print head with room for eleven separate colors.
I've spent a couple of days profiling papers and making test prints. The prints are quite remarkable - better overall than the 9800. Sharper, more colorful and much faster than the 9800 series. I spent a fair amount of time making spot reading with my Spectrolino, paying close attention to how black the blacks were, and the answer is that they are noticeably darker, with Crane Museo Silver Rag going all the down to L 4.9 printing under Advanced B&W.
I took one image - a particularly detailed image from a 1DsMKIII and Zeiss 21mm and printed it 24inches across. Not the largest size I've printed that image, but I was looking for very subtle differences. I printed the same image at 1440, high and low speed, 2880, single pass low speed, and just for kicks, 720 high speed double pass. Even when looking at the prints with a Schneider 4X loupe, there was virtually no difference in tonality, gradation in the sky or actual detail. To the naked eye (with reading glasses) the 720 hi-speed maybe showed the very slightest degree of increased granularity in in focus areas. Out of focus area appeared virtually identical. The color and density of all three print resolutions was so close that it would be hard to see any difference between them, and all using the custom made 1440 dpi profile.
That's it for now, but things are looking good so far, and it's very quiet.
I've also been told that the large 700ml carts are not yet available.
Peter
