So Xerox is trying to unload/move Iridesse so they make me an offer even though I am barely over 24 month of 72. On months with higher volume the cost would be less than the 3100. So I am thinking I should at least look at everything. I have samples from Ricoh, Minolta, and the Iridesse.
Ricoh 7200, not sure about the condition of drums, developer housing etc. I expected the samples to be better than the 3100 but they were not. I was not impressed.
KM, I believe the 3080. I was surprised by the smoothness of these samples. Looking with a loupe I see a different dot/line screen than all the others which probably accounts for what I am seeing. Much better look than the Ricoh samples.
Iridesse, This is a friends machine that I actually ran and had the chance to try different things. Here again I was surprised but not in a good way. Banding was somewhat there but overall was very good but I expected better. K only was very good smooth wise compared to the 3100 but banding was pretty noticeable.
Our 3100. Came back and ran some tests using 150Line on that sample I posted before and had very little banding which was about the same as the Iridesse at 200Dot I had just run.
Got to thinking about the RIP situation. Since none of these were available with FS400/APPE ver. 5. like the the new Versant 4100 I really started to question if I want to go that route now and possible not be able to support PDF ver 2 down the road.
After all this I decided our 3100 can produce just as good or close to the results that of these other printers and with the apparent stolen election and the possible attempt to force marxist/socialist anti business policies on us I feel it is just not a good time to be taking risks. The 3100 can produce good results, so I am just going to force Xerox to honor their contract and provide quality parts and replace what needs replace to do so. In reality I do not need to do anything now so I decided waiting would be the best option.