Hi again, Joe
Sorry I wasn't able to reply before you left for the weekend.
I've tried everything you've suggested to no avail. I did both the reset printer and reset nvram from the hidden service menu. No changes. I even went through and found every single place in the menu system that mentions colour correction or colour matching and set everything to 'none'. No change. I also tried changing from the default 'enhanced' print quality to 'photo' and back under the various settings, again with no change. I've tried both the let printer manage and let software manage options when these have been available.
Saving a file as postscript and then downloading to the printer does produce slightly better results than printing directly from the computer itself, but not much better -- maybe a 15% improvement in resolution/clarity and a 30% improvement in colour accuracy. No matter what though, I can't get anything remotely close to something I can actually use for work.
I did notice when going through all of this that this dithering effect and less than crisp lines and text IS in fact also occurring on the printer-generated test pages. It's not to as extreme a level as anything I try to print from outside of the printer's own stored documents but it's still obvious. The test pages are also much fuzzier than they should be although again, far far clearer than what I can get it to print myself.
I've taken photos of those test pages for you.
And finally, this final one shows on one hand that when printing the CMYK colours on its actual test page, the result is solid and single-colour. Printing this same colours as part of a different document though produces the other result. I've actually done a test of simply printing blocks of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black from my computer to verify.
Ignore the waves in the main body of the printed blocks as that's just how the paper is sitting, but one thing I did notice just now is that the columns of coloured blocks are staggered. Look at how they line up with the edge of the paper. It's like each one's stepped down. Everything else on the page is straight. Is this how it's supposed to look?
Can you please confirm that test pages are fine to the same stock?
It seems odd, there is no issue with the files themselves, and you are submitting from iOS, which doesn't use drivers, and a Mac that does, which means both would handle the job very differently, and no common setup beyond the job is likely using IPP for the port. Which would mean something has to be wrong with the printer.
But there can't be, the printer apparently prints just fine with anything internally sourced, but those jobs all render in the same engine on the device.
So that leaves the network, but that would be a thing for doesn't make it or does make it. No degradation of quality.
Can I ask what PNG program you are using that allows color profiles and works on OSX and iOS?
Give this a go, grab the print ready version of your file from here
And submit it to your device from CWIS ala Print > File Download
And if that prints good, we need to look into your applications and submission methods, if it prints the same(bad) we would need to get your machine wiped and possibly reloaded, but that isn't easy (unless you have a Maintenance agreement on it)