Help! New Epson ET-8550 worse than cheap HP?

[mitsley]

Hi there,

I just bought a new Epson ET-8550. It has great photo printing, but I'm hoping to find a fix for its document performance, because it's worse than the HP ENVY Photo 7855 I bought for $150 in 2020.

The main problem is ink bleed on and through the paper.

1. The HP prints crisp text without bleed around the characters. The text and images do not show through the paper from the other side.
2. Text from the Epson ET-8550 bleeds around the characters and both text and images are very visible through the paper from the other side, particularly the darker areas of the images. These issues are quite visible to the naked eye

I have taken steps to ensure this is a fair test:

• The same papers, including Epson paper.
• Both best and normal quality settings.
• Tried all types of paper *settings* on the Epson - plain paper, lightweight, coated, even photo glossy as I read that might stop the pigment ink being used.

The Epson also shows slight white lines in images on Normal quality, despite repeated calibration. These aren't visible on Best quality.

Can anyone recommend how to solve this? I bought the printer for printing double-sided on Tabloid paper at a reasonable cost. It surely isn't worse than a cheap HP!?

Many thanks!