I was running a non-OEM ink somewhat in parallel to the OEM inks; Sudhaus is a 3rd party ink distributor since a long time in Germany, and mgmt and ownership changed several times over time and is now with a French ink distributor; Sudhaus is producing (some) of the inks with their name themselves.
There are two versions of Epson inks offered - a standard type and an 'Ultra' type. I tested the ultra-inks with these results against the 106 inks - the black level is a L=10 instead of a 5 with the 106 ink - that's a dark gray and not a black on a glossy paper to start with, and I stopped the test after a week - the 106 ink is shifting a DeltaE of 0,6 and the Sudhaus black/dark gray is shifting a DeltaE of 10,43 - that's quite a difference - the Sudhaus black ink is about 16x faster than the 106 ink under the same sun - the blacks/dark grays in an image or a print are gone pretty quick.
https://sudhausinkjet.eu/de/startse...ltra-dye-tinte-fur-epson-farbe-nach-wahl.html
I'm not objecting principally 3rd party inks - e.g. printing stuff which I throw away shortly after print - when longevity is not relevant; the problem is that users typically are not aware of such effects and just buy by a low price. The Sudhaus ultra inks are priced at about 50% of the OEM inks, I don't think that is a fare price for this performancehi