Looking back over the period of 1.5 month now with the new line of Epson printers, the SC-P7500/9500 (in the USA 7570/9570),
i have come to the conclusion that this new line of Epson large format printers is a FAIL.
Much to my regret, this printer series is positioned by Epson as a step up, the contrary is true, it is the worst printer ever i have experienced.
I am puzzled as how this is possible, given alo a field-test period of more than 6 months by probably several persons, of one at least i know that he is not just somebody.
Also Epson has a long history in inkjetprinting, the SC-P9000 (6000,7000,8000) are really fine machines, very high print quality, reliable, robust.
I have used them from the moment they entered the market in The Netherlands, more than 4 years ago, and still have one SCP9000 running very well indeed.
I replaced a SCP7000 and a SCP9000, still printing perfect after 4 years of daily print-studio production use, by one SCP9500.
This was my worst decision in my printing life.
And the response thusfar from Epson Service is in the post earlier, but repeated here:
"If the provided ICC profiles don't give the expected printouts, the customer should adapt the ICC profiles to his papers. The higher the resolution, the more ink is used in the printout. For matte papers it could be too much ink in some cases. Matte paper can absorb half of the ink than glossy paper can absorb. Therefore you should use half of the resolution for the printouts. For SureColor SC-Px000-x0000 he could use the Color Calibration Utility. As you know the media and profile handling was changed for the new SC-P7500/9500. For the new printers you need Epson Edge Dashboard and Epson Media Installer. In the Media Installer you manage the media profiles and the color profiles."
I just do not get it.
Summary of issues:
- Over-inking, especially on Fine Art Gloss papers, less of a problem on Fine Art Matte papers, but still. Observed on severla printers already.
- Driver software poorly designed or programmed, see previous post on this, also observed by Rand.
- Paper-transport flaky , see attached PDF
- Scaling issues (see Rand's posts)
- Preview issues (see Rands posts and mine on this item)
- Head-alignment not maximal , close but not to the level of SC-P9000, somehow a bit better on Fine Art Matte compared to Fine Art Gloss.
- Epson Media Installer seriously flawed, see one my early posts on this topic.
In short, not usable, thus FAIL.
I spent several hundred Euro's already on ink and paper, not to mention my time, without getting somewhere really, other than reporting to Epson the issues.
Even a test production run on Fine Art Matte, ended in finding, thus reporting, another serious issue, this time in the paper transport.
How was it possible that printers of this poor quality were put on the market by Epson?
How does Epson do its product-quality control and assurance?
And then you get a reply from Epson ( see above), time for legal action now.