Lyson-branded Tiara Opal 2 is current Tiara solvent ink model

Lyson itself is a large and well known ink company. They began to rebrand Seiko and I believe Mutoh printers several years ago. Lyson headquarters are in England but Lyson has a well managed office in the US.

The Tiara Sapphire is not on the company web site any more. Printer model designations change so much it is hard to keep track. So we have moved all our information on Tiara and other solvent ink printers to PDF reports where we can cover all the brands and models and can update it more often.

Lyson Tiara Opal 2 is current Tiara solvent ink printer at Sigraph 2003 Tradeshow

Lyson-branded Tiara Tourmaline is last Tiara solvent ink model

All the Tiara are retrofitted printes, meaning that one company (Mutoh or Seiko) builds the basic chassis. Then Lyson switches out those parts (ink tubes, connectors, or printheads; it depends on which printer is involved) where they believe they can provide better features. These new parts allow Lyson Pentachrome solvent inks to work in the printers.

The advantage is, supposedly, that you get better internal parts. The risk is that the overall printer was designed and put together by two totally different entities. The other issue is service: who will service these across the US ? Where will spare parts come from? And how much daily maintenance do these printers require?

We do not have a site-visit case study of the Tiara or Mimaki JV3 so we are not yet able to certify them, one way or the other. But we do have site-visit case studies of the Arizona 90, Arizona 180, Mutoh Toucan, DGI Rex and upcoming on two ColorSpan 72S Gators.. You can obtain all these when you order the FLAAR Report Series on solvent ink printers. These FLAAR Reports are absolutely essential if you are even thinking of any of these printers: we have interviewed owner after owner after owner. We have traveled to their sign shops, noted every positive feature (and glitch, and every printer that has ground to a halt). So do your homework with the help of Professor Hellmuth’s efforts to track down documentation on the pros and cons of each brand of solvent ink printers. For example, we are not sure that Tiara printers have a distributor in the US any more; we have not seen any Tiara printers at US trade shows for about six months. Lyson ink company is alive and well. We will wait and see what we learn at FESPA printer trade show in Germany this summer.

Panoramic view of FLAAR facility at Bowling Green State University printed with the Lyson Tiara Opal 2 large format printer courtesy of Scarab Graphics.

If you order the Solvent ink FLAAR Report Series from FLAAR now, you get four years of Nicholas Hellmuth's experience in checking out solvent ink printers all in one convenient batch of PDF downloads. These reports are all in full-color and provide independent assessment of the pros and cons of DGI, Infiniti, Oce Arizona, Mutoh Toucan, Mimaki JV3, Lyson Tiara, and other inkjet printer brands.

If you wish specific information on a Tiara, and how it compares with a Mimaki JV3 and Seiko ColorPainter 64s in performance and price, you can obtain that from ScarabGraphics, since they know various brands (and HP and Canon too). Contact is ken@scarabgraphics.com.

Most recently updated May 18, 2005.
First posted March 10, 2004, checked on April 12, 2004, updated Nov. 3, 2004.