Scanner Test Epson V500, V700, Plustek 7600i

I own and use these scanners. My Plustek 7200 was retired as it will not run on Windows 10. I picked a weak Kodachrome slide and scanned it on all three with both the manufacturer supplied software and Vuescan. I included a Nikon D300 with a 60mm f2.8 Nikkor Macro shot to show the slide for reference. I used Professional mode and default settings at scanner manufacturer's optical limit in an effort to get what the scanner produces, not can be achieved with the scanning software adjustments. No tonal adjustments were made. The scans were reduced in PSCS5.1 and converted to jpeg for web posting. The scans are in my photostream in an album. The album is Dead Link Removed
The Epson V500 was replaced with the V600. Both use LED light source and have the same specs.
I am on the SF Peninsula so if anyone in the area wants to lend me their Cannon or Pacific Image scanner for an hour or two to make test scans to add to this feel free to contact me.
This was posted on Photo.net earlier this month. http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00doEU

I'm missing the point. The scanner software appears to have made adjustments to lighting exposure contrast and levels on the Vuescan images. The Epson software images appears to be have scanned flat. So the comparisons don't prove anything.

The point is software cannot change the specifications and limitations of the hardware. A scan is a scan if done without any adjustments to what the scanner captures. You can't change the dMax of the scanner. Of course, changes made to the scan results either in the scanner or afterwards with separate post processing software will change the final results. So I'm not sure what your images and results show us.

There're problems with all of these scans - blown highlights or crushed blacks, some odd artefacts. The best are the two Epsonscan results - as Alan points out, they are at least relatively flat.