InDesign / Color Separations / BW Laser printer

In the past, I have always used an old HP Laserjet 4MV/PS for our spot color separations from Pagemaker. Most InDesign (CS2 & CS3 / PC) files are too big for it to handle, so we create pdfs and output that way. The 4MV has now died and we want something that outputs a better quality dot pattern and separations to paper for grayscales/shading. I don't need high volume, but do need at least 11 X 17 and only need it to output black. What printer will handle large graphic files and provide a good dot pattern?

The printer in question, the Brother HL-4570CDW, is a fairly inexpensive SOHO laser printer typically used to print “office” documents. As such, it doesn't offer direct options either on the front panel or via the driver to match typical commercial print conditions such as SWOP. Most content sent to such a device is sent as RGB from printer drivers.
(For your convenience, I have attached a copy of both the specification sheet and the manual for this device!)
Some ideas:
(1)  Don't expect reasonable CMYK colors if you are using what Brother describes as the “Windows(r) printer driver (the most suitable printer driver for this product)” and what is apparently installed by default (see page 26 of manual). It invokes an emulation of HP PCL5C, pure RGB, which is a real problem from InDesign. Install their “BR-Script printer driver” and turn off the option for RGB vivid color and try that instead. BR-Script is Brother's emulation of PostScript 3 - definitely not Adobe PostScript 3, but it possibly will give you better results than their emulation of PCL5C!
(2)  Assuming you are printing BR-Script and the colors are still very problematic, try recalibrating the printer via the printer's front panel. See page 82 of their manual!
(3)  Export PDF as PDF/X-4 and try printing the PDF/X-4 file from Acrobat Pro or Adobe Reader, again using the BR-Script driver. This might improve things.
If you still can't get decent color and the printer is still “new,” I'd try to return the unit as defective. You can get much better printers for comparable prices from Xerox that have Adobe PostScript 3 and have reasonably good color. Otherwise, if still under warranty, I'd contact Brother and see if they have solutions other than blaming Adobe somehow! 
          - Dov
PS: This isn't the first report I've heard of serious problems with Brother CloneScript devices.

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