Obviously neither is a perfect choice, but for printing runs of 1200 11x17 full process color (CMYK) pieces with medium to high ink coverage on gloss stock, which press that is within my budget would be a better choice:

• a Heidelberg QM 46-2 with the shared blanket cylinder, but heidelberg quality
• or a Ryobi 3302 true 2-color press, but not a heidelberg

Or would either one be an excerise in frustration moving up from printing on digital CLCs?

I used to run a 3302 and did 4 color process on it. The only real issue with that press doing 4 color work is the registration by pushing the sheet rather than pulling the sheet. I did plenty of pleasing 4 color work on it. Registration is pretty good dot for dot as long as you know what you are doing and set it up correctly. One thing you want to make sure is to have a densitometer and run color bars to industry standard ink densities. Or even better, have the press profiled, so you know exactly what they should be. Also great for knowing your dot gain too (VERY IMPORTANT). As for the QM press I don't recommend it. A friend of mine has one who runs a trade shop and it is good for spot color jobs, but he showed me several jobs he just couldn't get to register when he tried 4 color jobs, your could flip throught it and see the mis-registration. My opinion is the Ryobi is better at sheet to sheet registration. Think about it, the Ryobi has a register board, the sheet comes down it, stops, is pushed into registration, and then fed into the press. Same way with a multilith and some hamadas. I also used to run 4-color jobs on a multilith 1250LWCD press with a kompac unit with and with out a t-head with great results. And by the way, all the old presses ran 4 color with pull guides before the invent of the push guide (an older harris is a good example). Hope this helps.
John

Thanks very much John - I really appreciate your expertise and advice.

I've also been told that with the QM I would likely get contamination of one ink to the other due to the shared blanket nature of the press if trying to do too much coverage, even on runs of only 1200. Combine that with inconsistent registration (I've seen the brochure go on about good the feed mechanism was and how easy it is to change from one size to another, so I guess I got ahead of myself) and I guess that's why there are so many on ebay now. Definitely not for me (on our digital equipment one frustration is that the registration isn't very accurate; it doesn't matter most of the time since it's 4 color in one go so the "registration" on each print is perfect to the print area itself, but when trying to get things to line up not printed in one go, or when back to front is really critical, I've had that frustration plenty already, so a QM is definitely out for me if registration wanders!)

Still looking at a 2-color Ryboi as they're in my price range and there are a lot of them on the market right now it seems. Any other recommendations for presses to look at? I'm not desperate to make any change, so I have some time to think about it.

As far as a common blanket is concerned, you can and I have run quality work on a common blanket machine. There are some steps you need to follow to make it work. First you need to use separations that use GCR (gray component replacement). It take color areas of equal value (cyan, magenta & yellow) and replace it with black. Using a high level of GCR you eliminate a large percentage of the CMY colors which can elimate the color contamination problem. The other is to understand which color goes on the blanket first. Most inks are transparent (colors will show through) so if you run your lightest colors per pass on the main unit of the press and the darker color on the 2 color head you elliminate contaminating the lighter color. You can read more about it at this link http://www.t-51.com/PDFsFordownload/overp3.pdf. Using these principals I have run quality four color process on the Ryobi 3200, AB Dick 360, and Multilith models 1250, 2850 and 1650. Registration on direct feed models can be achieved, some models better than others. I just ran a job on my Ryobi 3200 with perfect registration. The press needs to be in good mechanical condition. Feeder timing must be correct to manufacturer specs. In feed rollers need to be in good condition and have even pressure from the non op to op side of the roller. This can be checked adjusted by the operator, a good service tech should be able to tell you this procedure. The key to registering on a direct feed machine with no register board is to have your paper cut all to the same size. Set your non op rear side guide parallel to the paper. Adjust the op side spring so that is compressed in a vertical position agaist the stock, not at a 45 degree angle. The adjust the front guides so that they just touch the sheet evenly on both sides. Then add pressure to them while feeding a couple of test sheets. If the pressure is too much it will bow the sheet causing miss registration. If it is too little pressure you could have some miss registration also. You have to set it to be in the middle of these two senarios. When set right, I have achieved perfect registration test printing 100+ sheets fed twice through the press. As far as the QM I can't say, I haven't run one before to try it. I just know what I saw of the press my friend had. The results didn't impress me, but I don't know if he used the principals which I described here.

Hi,

We have had our QM46-2 for 6 months now and we can run good quality 4 col work on it, however the paper weight must be over 200gsm to offer the best registration.

Hi,

I know quite a few people that run 4 colour work on a Heidelberg but the 46 Printmaster is better than the 46 Quickmaster to achieve this sucessfully due to its slightly different set up.
Paper quality is important and also the use of metal plates, as opposed to polyester.

Regards.