Toner Plastics is as far as I can tell, the same as Ultimachine (awsome!). I only tried the natural colored PLA, which I haven't used from Ultimaker, but it seems to work identical to the Ultimaker Black I have. I'll be using Toner Plastic black later tonight. Same spools, same tints, same temps... It's cheaper, and while they have limited selection for colors, it's great to be able to buy locally.
And yes, filament does matter, more than I ever expected.
We know there is only a few makers in China, and my experience has been that they each use a specific spool. I won't buy smooth sided spools again, I'm convinced the manufacturer has no QA of any form other than making sure it spools and gets loaded on a palette. One seller claims if it doesn't work for you, there's something wrong with your machine, lies, and that he uses it in his machines, more lies. I know, because he asked me to do some prototype work for him. This was after he blew off my problems with his filament.
The ribbed spool like Ultimaker, Toner Plastics and Toybuilder/Prototype Supply, work great, barring the ABS shrink issues from the latter.
I don't think I have had a single jam with Ultimaker that I can blame on the filament. NONE. It was always an outside influence. So when someone tells me it's the machine that makes their filament jam my machine every 5 minutes, I have to take it with a grain of salt.
Nozzles matter, but in a much different way. When I had a .5 nozzle, I could run anything that fit through my Bowden. Now, no way. One thing I have also learned is that nozzle size is less crucial to good prints than I thought. A smaller nozzle allows tighter corners or thinner walls, but otherwise a smaller nozzle, just means more headaches and slower print times. Layer height will do more for quality than nozzle size. I've seen amazing stuff from .5's and junk from .35 all due to layer height. While I like .35 (I've had .5, .4 and .35), my next nozzles will probably be .4 again, as they seem quite a bit more forgiving without a large difference in size/quality. It seems like anything will block a .35 nozzle, while a .4 is just large enough to let things slip through. I also use a polishing pad from a Dremel as a filter. While I can't say it has stopped a jam for sure, I am pretty sure it has suspect it has, considering the junk it has pulled off the filament.