Konica c6501 vs Xerox docucolor 260

[ginfay]

random,

What's the price difference between the Creo and the Fiery? The only reason I'm going with the Fiery instead of the Creo on the new c6501 is because I used the Fiery on the c500 and I'm familiar with the command workstation gui. I don't have any experience using the Creo so I am not familiar with it at all.

And why wouldn't you run a business using an embedded Fiery?

[Craig]

Ginfay,
Go with what you are comfortable with, Fiery is a fine product and produces color as good as or better than Creo. Creo used to be like Quark, the industry "standard" Fiery has come a long way in the last few years.

[SnappySteve]

I have no experience with the 260 but almost 2 years on the Oce cs650, which is basically a km6500. As far as Creo vs Fiery, if you are print-for-pay and have clients who want the same color today as they will get on reorder in 2 months, you better get a Creo. We tried Fiery on our 650 (the Creo was not ready when we bought) and it was garbage, so we made them switch us to the Creo. Furthermore EFI's support is very lacking when you start to have your color problems. We also have a Xerox 6060 w/Creo that we've had for 5 years and I could run a color saturation that I ran 4 years ago and match it spot-on today. Good luck doing that on a Fiery. If all you need is the gadgets and tricks bag that comes with it, Fiery is OK but we are in business to sell quality color and would never have another Fiery.

The 6500 will do well for you as long as you have knowledgable tech support. We run duplex, heavy coverage, coated cover all the time and do well with it. We are looking to replace the 6060 with a DC 700 but the 35k (12x18 size) duty cycle is a little spooky. We average about 60 - 80k 12x18's on our machines per month.

Just my $ .02

[Craig]

I have no experience with the 260 but almost 2 years on the Oce cs650, which is basically a km6500. As far as Creo vs Fiery, if you are print-for-pay and have clients who want the same color today as they will get on reorder in 2 months, you better get a Creo.

Just wondering if that issue is related to the 6500/650? I have no issues whatsoever regarding color match on re-prints, maybe it has to do with the model of the Fiery.

[SnappySteve]

Just wondering if that issue is related to the 6500/650? I have no issues whatsoever regarding color match on re-prints, maybe it has to do with the model of the Fiery.

We fought the 650 from day one - the day we swapped in the Creo, everything came around for us. Likewise, all of the tests we did before we bought the 6060 were the same - Fiery couldn't do the job. So one was a 5 yr old Fiery and one was from the beginning of last year (system 8 maybe?) Everyone we have talked to that has gone with Fiery for production color has been sorry, whether on an Xbox or a Konnie.

[Craig]

Ours is an EX8000 which is the system 8 with the full Graphic Arts Package. I must be one of the odd balls. Our color is almost a dead match to Pantone Bridge, and the most variation we had on a reprint was 3dE but that was after a PM with new developers. Go Figure?

[SnappySteve]

That's good Craig - I don't have anything personal against Fiery, our experience has just been that we have not been able to do good color work with it. We are very meticulous about calibrating every morning also. Glad your 8000 is working well. Do you have any commercial accounts that you print for that complain about the sheen from the Xerox? That was the main reason we bought the 650 for our second color machine.

[rcreveli]

We have a 6500 with the large capacity trays, Fiery S450 and the basic staple finisher. We did not get the Graphic Arts package. We did however get the spectrophotometer about 90 days in. In my opinion it's essential. Regarding the controller I have been a bit disappointed with EFI lately. We have 2 xerox 4112's a Canon IR 9070 and the KM. I have noticed anomalies when printing to any of them (All Fiery controllers) from Indesign CS2&CS3.

For instance. When I send a file from indesign many of the controls don't work after the file has been ripped. For instance if I want to change a file from simplex to duplex it will register the change but when the file prints it will still be simplex. The same for things like image shift and stpling. This happens to about 80% of our indesign files.

Also about 1 time in 15 when we send a multi page document the first page will print correctly but the rest of the pages will be rotated 90 degrees. again only from indesign.

So I think EFI and or Adobe are slipping a bit.

[SnappySteve]

When I send a file from indesign many of the controls don't work after the file has been ripped. For instance if I want to change a file from simplex to duplex it will register the change but when the file prints it will still be simplex.

Sounds like a printer driver issue and/or a RIP issue. I would not think this would pertain to In Design.

[Mark]

Mark,

I take it must have a c6500? Out of interest what is your monthly volumes?

Hard to say since we are so new. We got the KM6500 mid july and we are at 174000.
Of course we were not really doing much real work in july and early aug.

We are new to digital "printers", are there supposed to be so many tech visits? We've had eight so far this month.