Any Printhead Experts? Ricoh Gen5 Vs Panasonic

[sqk7700]

Looking at a new printer for dye-sub. Mimaki uses panasonic heads which I don't know anything about, does anyone have experience?

Mimaki has a decent reputation but is definitely on the lower end of the printers I'm looking at, did they cut costs by using panasonic heads instead of Ricoh or Kyocera?

 

[Solventinkjet]

This is just my opinion but I think Mimaki started to using Panasonic and Ricoh heads to move away from Epson because Epson has been slowly putting a choke hold on Mimaki, Mutoh and Roland for years now. A good example is that, from what I have seen, in the past 5-6 years the price of a DX5 print heads has gone up about 700%. That 700% gets passed on to the customer and degrades the long term value and resell value of Mimaki printers. That 700% has nothing to do with any real market factors. It is simply a tactic to kill the competition. If I were Mimaki I would do the same thing.