Lyson inks, satisfaction, and tech support

[Ed Eubanks]

I so enjoyed the recent discussion on B&W digital printing for large format, especially because I am experimenting with this more and more. What is more, I have recently purchased a second Epson printer (SP925-- I know, a LOT lower-end than what many of you are using, but its in my budget) with the plan to designate it as a full-time photographic printer.
One of the aspects of the discussion that intrigued me was the "down on Lyson" tone that I picked up. I have two main questions regarding Lyson inks and the prevailing attitude toward them:
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<LI>In snooping around the Lyson website, it appears that they are currently hiring for the position of technical support assistant, which could be an explanation for the complaints of technical no-service-- if they are without a tech support rep, they may have too much of a backlog to get around to with any expediency. Question #1: would this theory mesh with your experiences, those of you who have used Lyson inks and tech support?
<LI>Question #2: Apart from technical support complaints, what is the general satisfaction with Lyson inks-- especially the monochrome inks, and even more especially the "Quad Black" monochrome inks? What papers work well (or really don't work well) with these?
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I am mostly curious because these (the Quad Black) inks are now available for the Epson SP925, which is/was a VERY affordable printer with great digital results. In other words, I would be able to afford (on a married-with-children graduate student's budget) to set up a designated B&W printer capable of 8x10s very inexpensively. However, the quality of the Lyson inks is still an unknown to me.
Thanks for your responses.

[Ted Harris]

FWIW remember that you will void any Epson warrenty by using anyone else's ink. May not matter but something to thinkk about.

[Nathaniel Paust]

This is sort of only half on topic, but I thought I'd share anyway.

I got a new laptop a few months ago and it came with a "free after mail-in rebate" printer. I figured I'd just sell the Epson C84 on e-bay and pocket the money coming out that much farther ahead. Of course, I didn't count on the fact that everyone and their cat was doing the same thing and Epson C84s were selling for less than my starting price of $30.

MIS recently introduced a b&w inkset for the C84 though, and I figured that it would be worth trying. After all, even if I ruined the printer it would only be a $30 loss (or breaking even since I got the rebate).

I have to report that the b&w prints look pretty darn nice. Maybe 95% of the custom hand-done ones that I've paid to have done. Of course, there's the problem that when I put garbage into the printer, great prints don't come out...

Anyway, these third party ink sets definitely do work to turn your printer into a decent b&w printing machine. (even though this sentence sounds stupid if you think about it too much)