A friend brought over some inkjet B&W prints for me to look at. He used three papers that are currently touted as 'the answer to fibre B&W'. I then took the original B&W negs (8x10 and 7x17) and made contact prints on Forte Polygrade V, Azo and hand coated pt/pd using platinotype paper.

No contest. The real thing looks nicer, sharper, cleaner and doesn't exhibit off axis viewing problems.

The digital printing looks really good on all three but definately not the equivalent of real B&W prints on silver papers. The pt/pd is a wash visually as the digital looks so much like the original as to be easily confused with each other. The silver prints put side by side with the digital prints(on all 3 digital B&W papers) are much nicer. Sharper and cleaner looking to my eye.(and 7 other photogs eye in a blind comparison where they didn't know which was which until after they wrote down their impressions).

Inkjet printing is getting better. The prints he brought over were also printed on the newest Canon and HPZ31oo printers in addition to the Epson 2400 and 3800 he used for his prints. Same result. Really good work from the inkjets but when displayed side by side with the real thing, just did not stack up yet.