Canon 9500 II vs Epson R280

I bought a Canon 9500 mk II a couple of years ago to make larger and better prints than the Epson R280 that was bundled with my iMac. Printing from Aperture, I find that the 9500 prints are not as vivid as the R280 prints, and often seem washed out in comparison. I use high quality photo papers from the respective companies on each and select these papers when printing. Any thoughts on why this is happening and how I can improve the Canon output?
Thanks.

My guess would be color management and or printer profiles. I don't know Aperture enough to help you with specifics, though.

I'd assume the same. Make sure the program is handling the color output and use the correct ICC profiles for your papers. Red River and others offer custom ICC profiles for their papers and the 9500.

I would definitely check all the advanced settings in the printer menu. There are ones for making adjustments on top of the printer profile.

You also have to make sure that either the printer or Aperture is controlling the profile (although I haven't used aperture). It's not too hard in generall to apply two profiles on top of each other.

Personally I export to an adobeRGB tiff/jpeg and then use DPP to print (for Canon consistency) - even then you can quite easily apply a profile on top of another - but I find I often have to reduce saturation becasue the 9500II makes blues and greens too vivid. I've had that will all the papers and profiles I've used so far.