Crouser & Associates Performance Group program helps printers prosper through
on-site assistance and twice yearly group meetings. For more information by Email or call (304) 342-5100. Crouser Report OnLine is the Copyright Thomas P. Crouser. Material may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written consent. Current reports are on the WWW at http://www.printusa.com.

Imagesetter Choices ECRM VR36 or Agfa AccuSet800?

Copyright January 3, 1996

1996 NAQP Price Survey, cosponsored by Crouser & Associates, is now in the mail. Please return your response as soon as possible. And, make sure you have reservations for NAQP s New Orleans Meeting February 8-10, 1995. Pamela and I will see you there. Tom

Transmitted from Jacksonville, Florida

A reader writes about his equipment purchase decision. Do you have any advice?

We have a full service graphic design business coupled with our small format, high quality printing business. 80% of our work is two color, 20% is four color, run on a 2 color Heidelberg GTOZ-S. We design 75% of what we print, mostly corporate identity and marketing collateral materials. We use a UMAX PowerLook scanner for pleasing color scans, and send out for hi-quality scans.

In 1995 we spent $35,000 on service bureaus, of which about $5,000 was for high end scans. Our prep person can do Photoshop color correction and run the imagesetter within current workload. We are considering buying a 14 imagesetter. Two have been suggested: ECRM Scriptsetter VR36 with software RIP, and Agfa AccuSet 800 with Viper software RIP. We will use a dedicated Mac 8100/80 with 80 meg mem and 1 GB disk to drive imagesetter and do color correction.


Tom s Note:
This is a lower risk proposed investment than most printers propose since there already is a stream of revenue of $30,000 per year which comes from avoiding the outside expenses ($35,000 in service bureaus - $5000 in high end scans which may still be done by the service bureau). Most would buy the equipment first and then hope they could sell enough to support it.

Initial pricing is about $30,000 for ECRM and $42,000 for Agfa. It may also be possible to get preferential pricing from DuPont if we make a film deal with them. They have the same ECRM machine under their label.

The readers questions are:
  1. What makes the Agfa worth more, if it is?
  2. Should I have a maintenance contract?
  3. Does anyone have experience with either?
  4. Are there others in this range that are better?


Thanks for helping me choose. Bob.
Do you have any comments we can pass along to Bob and share with everyone else?
If so, please reply to this message Tom Crouser. Thanks for your help.. Tom
Does your shop have what it takes to survive the next twenty years? Reply to this message with the word DETAILS and I will send to you information about our on-site threat analysis. Spring dates being accepted.

Crouser & Associates Performance Group program includes two on-site evaluations by Tom Crouser each year along with two group meetings. Management training is held during the group meetings along with participation in a meeting with non-competing printers. Join others who have decided to run their business instead of the business running them. Reply to by Email to Tom Crouser for more detailed information or call Clark Workman at (304) 342-5100. Or fax (304) 342-5187 or contact crouser@ibm.net.


Return to Crouser Index

Date inserted: Wednesday, January 31, 1996 7:34:55 PM

Return to PrintUSA home page WWW at http://www.printusa.com.