IHas anyone made the leap and what has been your experience?
Many thanks in advance!
Well, I'm guessing most have made the leap, probably a long time ago. I've got a 2200 sitting in a closet that hasn't made a print in several years. The 3800 (I have 2 of them) is light years ahead of the 2200, on both PK and MK papers. In addition, your ink costs will plummet since it uses much larger ink cartridges so the cost per ml is much lower than your 2200.
As good as the 3800 is, i still uses the original K3 inkset, which has been superseded quite some time ago by the K3 with Vivid Magenta inkset (48/78/98/11880 printers), and now by the K3 HDR inkset of the 79/9900 printers. There has been speculation for a long time that Epson would update the 3800 to the K3/Vivid Magenta inks, but no one has a clue if they are even working on such a printer.
So despite that fact, the K3 inkset is still a big jump over the original Ultrachrome inks used in the 2200, so the 3800 is still a terrific buy. If you calculate how much ink comes with the printer and compare that to what you are paying for 2200 inks right now, I'm guessing you'll find the actual printer is only costing you around $600.
One other thing you may want to consider ... the newer papers designed for PK inks are stunning . I have pretty much moved completely away from matte inks. You may want to spend some time searching the forum and read some of the main site articles on these phenomenal papers. There are several threads discussing them, as well as links to some other reviews.
Here's one link to check out...
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/...rs/baryta.shtml