HP's here but I followed closely the switch from Epsons to Canons in a friend's print shop. There was no alternative for Epsons up to the 9800 range when HP and Canon introduced their photo/art quality wide formats in 2006. I went for HP and never regretted that switch. He got himself a Canon iPF9000 which was replaced by an iPF9400about two years ago I guess. That next to the iPF8300 and two iPF5100s that he also had. The Epson period: 1x 3000-3x 9000s-2x 9600-1or2x 9800 was closed with a 11880 he still uses but less and with more issues than the Canons. It was bought after the iPF9000 and needed to be run at the highest print resolution to reduce density waves in the blacks. Epson did not address the issues properly and later on used the silly argument that the use of third party papers should be stopped before any issue could be solved. In reflection the crises here made quite a dent in Epson service capabilities etc where Canon had to gain a market and did everything to solve the issues for their fresh line of wide formats. Canon heads improved since. An issue with the bearings of the media transport roll on the iPF9000 (media transport deviations) were solved by Canon with new bearing types after much brainstorming by my friend and me. Happened after many miles of matte art paper prints.
In general the Epson step from 180 nozzles per inch heads to 360 per inch heads to get similar print speeds the Canons can deliver, may have caused way more issues than expected. Nozzle checks have been and are the morning ritual for almost every Epson owner and is a rarity for Canon and HP owners. Nozzles dropping out during a print is also rare for us. I will not repeat the content of threads here but the issues reported here on Canons and Epsons reflect the experience of my friend's shop with both brands. He sleeps way better now than he ever did when Epsons were the workhorses of his shop.
There are differences in paper handling, paper weights, roll widths possible near 60", small gamut differences but they all are less important than the fact that on any day of the week you think I can do the job today without problems. The price you got quoted is a good one, we will never see a price like that here.
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Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htmApril 2014, 600+ inkjet media white spectral plots.