But i’m replacing our i1 Pro 2 for on-press spot checks and custom spot builds. We target dE00 <= 1.5 under D50 in a Just Normlicht booth and need quick reads on uncoated and recycled stocks — how are the eXact Standard and Techkon SpectroDens holding up day to day? Any quirks with white tiles, maintenance, or spot libraries that affect consistency?
SpectroDens has been steadier for us on fibrous stocks, but either way lock to “M1 D50,” use a 2–3 mm aperture, and average 3 reads to keep dE00 ≤1.5. Clean the white tile and calibrate each shift — the eXact tile seems to pick up smudges faster than our SpectroDens (wipe it like your glasses). Are you loading custom spots as CxF3 on-device or relying on the built-in Pantone libraries?
We swapped our i1 Pro 2 for an eXact Standard last quarter; the only daily gotcha is the white tile — if it isn’t acclimated to the D50 booth it drifts, so park it in there 10–15 minutes, wipe with a dry lint-free cloth, and recal every about 50 reads. Agree with @mikeJ34 on averaging; on uncoated/recycled I get steadier dE00 <=1.5 by using black backing and the 4 mm aperture instead of 2–3 mm, and Pantone library updates require eXact Manager () while Techkon’s offline spot lists are less fussy. Are you tied to PantoneLIVE or just local spot libraries?
And on uncoated/recycled, the real win for us has been enabling SCCA so the spot library aims are corrected to the actual paper; it tightened our “dE00 ≤1.5” hit rate without extra rereads. Fibrous sheets can make any handheld twitchy, so set a consistent black backing for thin stocks to stop show-through from nudging L* around. If you go eXact, do you plan to use BestMatch/PantoneLIVE or keep a local LAB spot library in eXact Manager?