Time to buy new Regs.

[Blackchains]

Your suggestions please?

Especially the, I would never buy a "XXXXX" again.

Thanks for the help,

[stairman]

I would recommend Atomic Aquatics regs.Z-2s'I love mine,service every other year.

[Slüdge]

Three suggestions, for three different reasons:

Best breather, cost is no object: Scubapro Mark 25, G-250V. An advantage is you can get them serviced at more places than any other brand.

Best new reg, where cost is a factor: Atomic Aquatics Z-2.

Best breather for the buck: Mark 10, 15, or 20 with a 1985-1997 G-250 off eBay. I've seen these (and bought them) for under a hundred bucks a set.

[atedeschi]

i would recommend the Dive Rite RG3000s used to be the RG2500s. Great regs used them for year down in Florida and in the Northeast wreck diving. You can abuse these regs all year and they will still keep going and you can get them serviced pretty easy or you can get you own part kits for them and do them yourself. They are priced right and lifetime warrenty on parts if serviced my a dealer.

[aainslie]

Where do you dive? Can't beat Salvo for local service if you're near High Springs. And frankly ANY modern reg is fine - I use aqualung titans because if they can survive dive store rental usage, they can survive anything. And they can!

Stay cheap and simple. Avoid Apeks like the plague - complex, finnicky, expensive.

[ARY]

... I use aqualung titans because ...
Stay cheap and simple. Avoid Apeks like the plague - complex, finnicky, expensive.
I've heard many good things about Titans. What is wrong w/Apex in your opinion? Isn't the SALVO/DR/Scubamax...SeaElite first stage the old Apex design? I think it is pretty generic except maybe few nice improvements w/second stage. I love my XTX50 is probably the best easy breather reg i ever had (a also possess bunch of DRs and Oceanics). Apex excellently works in a facing current (i would say the next best to Poseidon second stages). The only drawback is that it is twice mor expensive as Titan. After all they are both Aqualung :-)

[Serota]

You find the G-250V to breath better than the S600?



Best breather, cost is no object: Scubapro Mark 25, G-250V. An advantage is you can get them serviced at more places than any other brand.

[Wizard]

I love my Posiedons but many folks hate them. The favorites now seem to be the the 3000 DR and the Atomics. Never heard a bad thing about either of them.

[Me]

Alot of it depends on where you live and what you can get serviced there/or parts for to do it yourself.

What is available where you live? If you let us know, the list will be narrowed down significantly. Otherwise, you'll get as many opinions as posters!

For me, due to where I live, the shop I use, and what I can get parts for.....my choice is the Mares Abyss.

[Slüdge]

You find the G-250V to breath better than the S600?

If they're both set up the same, yes.

If they are tuned the same, the VIVA will kick in harder in the larger body. For some reason, technicians usually set the S-600 lighter to make up for this. But the 250 can be set just as light. So in the big picture, the G-250 and G-250V are the best breathers. Note the G-250HP is conspicuous by its absense - and the HP actually stands for High Performance!

[aainslie]

I've heard many good things about Titans. What is wrong w/Apex in your opinion? Isn't the SALVO/DR/Scubamax...SeaElite first stage the old Apex design? I think it is pretty generic except maybe few nice improvements w/second stage. I love my XTX50 is probably the best easy breather reg i ever had (a also possess bunch of DRs and Oceanics). Apex excellently works in a facing current (i would say the next best to Poseidon second stages). The only drawback is that it is twice mor expensive as Titan. After all they are both Aqualung :-)

I have the ATX/XTX 200's. Big mistake. The 50's and 100's are cheaper and better.

[cavediver256]

Well I have 7 or 8 DR 2500s.....no complaints so far...

[RainerH]

I would recommend APEKS DS4/TX 50. This regulator have a good WOB and are very cheap. A lot of European Cave Diver use APEKS. They are also cold water resistent.

Rainer

[Crazzzy]

I like Poseidon JetStream. It has good easy breath, good cold water resistant and excellence mud resistant. Apeks also popular in our team.

[Gary]

Well I have 7 or 8 DR 2500s.....no complaints so far...
+1 on what cavediver said.

The RG1000 2nd stages were not very adjustable but with the upgraded springs and/or in the later series (RG2000+) we've just kept adding more and more of these to our pile.

[Nix]

I love poseidons. Right now you can pick up Dive Rite's rebranded xstream first stage jetstream seconed stage at northeastscubasupply.com for half off. They can be tough to get serviced, but I've never seen a reg outperform the poseidon in cold conditions. It also keeps up with the best in warm conditions.

Just my .02 of course ;o)

[Pete]

The original question asked if there was any brand anyone would definitely not recommend.

My worst ever experience with a regulator was in the early 1990's taking a pair made by a well known European manufacturer to be serviced only to be told 'no can do' because the manufacturer had stopped making service kits for that model!!!! Great to learn that a pair of 6 year old regulators effectively had to be scrapped. I should add that being English Europe is that land mass the other side of the English Channel.

The lesson from this is to try and buy regulators that you can be pretty confident you will be able to obtain spares for for many years to come. Manufacturers who supply to governments are usually obliged to provide lengthy periods of service support as part of the contract. This is one of the reasons why a lot of government purchased equipment (both sides of the pond) costs so much. However, on the positive side if you happen to purchase regulators used by the military then it is a pretty good bet that not only will spares be available for many, many years but also that they will have been well tested with good to excellent breathing performance.

So what do I use. Answer Apeks. Why, well I just happen to know that they have some of the best figures you can get for work of breathing of any regulator. Indeed the TX40 is almost as good as you can get. TX50 not quite so good as the 'dial a breath' fractionally reduces the performance. TX100, why spend so much when the TX40 is so good!! Spares not a problem, in some formats DS4 like first stages routinely operating 350bar. Plus of course environmentally sealed which is a plus if at time you end up in cold water. Comment was made about environmentally sealed not being that important if you are only diving in warm Florida caves. Maybe true but just ask yourself where the first stage of the regulator attached to a stage bottle can spend a significant portion of its time. Answer, bobbing about in the silt of the cave floor. Do you really want to put a non environmentally sealed first stage in such a position!!!

[Wendy Thurman]

I had a Poseidon Odin in the early 90's and loved it- easy breather. There is, in the reg, a silicone sort of sleeve and mine ruptured on a wall dive in the Caribbean. It quit breathing- I could drag a breath out of the thing, but barely. Switched to octo and all was good, but I have been leery of Poseidons ever since. Maybe I had a lemon- rebuilt it and it still never worked quite right- but I avoid the regs these days. It's like a Ferrari- when it's in tune, you can't beat it, but you better have some guy named Guido to work on it.

For sheer reliability, a Sherwood Brut is hard to beat but it isn't the best choice for technical applications. I've seen them work fine with broken shims; there is a reason why the regs were the rentals of choice in the Caribbean once upon a time. For stage or deco, a Brut or an Oceanic equivalent has to be hard to beat and that's what I use (Oceanic).

I've not used Apeks- I am currently using Dive-Rite RG3000's which may be an Apeks re-brand- I don't know and any education would be appreciated. I've been happy with them down to about 200 FSW.

Way back when, in the early 90's, before I knew better, I dove Seaquest top-of-the-line regs to 255 feet and they delivered fine. The equipment clearly was more sane than I was.

My point here is that I think that Poseidon is fantastic equipment but is not suited to everyday use. And by "everyday" I mean 2-3 dives a day a week in and week out. Unless you have a tech onboard.

[Scubastud16]

I have Frankenstein regs, I a Salvo SR2 first stage with Mares second stages. The house routing on the SR2 is great, and it breathes just fine for me. I'll replace the second stages later with some Salvos or something along that line.

[aainslie]

I've heard many good things about Titans. What is wrong w/Apex in your opinion? Isn't the SALVO/DR/Scubamax...SeaElite first stage the old Apex design? I think it is pretty generic except maybe few nice improvements w/second stage. I love my XTX50 is probably the best easy breather reg i ever had (a also possess bunch of DRs and Oceanics). Apex excellently works in a facing current (i would say the next best to Poseidon second stages). The only drawback is that it is twice mor expensive as Titan. After all they are both Aqualung :-)

Hey Ary, sorry I didn't really answer your question. It's the ATX 200 1st stage that I don't like, too many unnecessary bells and whistles. It is the worst reg for IP creep I've ever seen.

Their cure was unbelievably dumb - the added MORE bells and whistles:

http://www.aqualung.com/products/xtx200_status.html

I would agree that the TX40 is one of the best regs Apeks makes.

[apitkin]

Hey Ary, sorry I didn't really answer your question. It's the ATX 200 1st stage that I don't like, too many unnecessary bells and whistles. It is the worst reg for IP creep I've ever seen.

Their cure was unbelievably dumb - the added MORE bells and whistles:

http://www.aqualung.com/products/xtx200_status.html

I would agree that the TX40 is one of the best regs Apeks makes.

Apeks got bought out by US Divers. It's pretty easy to work out when that happened by looking at their product line.

Andy

[aainslie]

Err... aqualung, actually.

http://www.aqualung.com/us/content/view/198/276/

[battles2a5]

DS4/XTX 50's. I was using sea elite Tek-X's (still a good reg) until my cave training. After spending many an hour at the breathing end of my instructor's Apeks I bouught a set. I love them so far.

[apitkin]

Err... aqualung, actually.

http://www.aqualung.com/us/content/view/198/276/

Same company.

[aainslie]

Same company.

They're both subsidiaries. Aqualung owns US Divers AND Apeks. US Diver doesn't own Apeks.

[MORGAN]

All my regs are TX40's & 50's, and I love them. I have no interest in any of the newer Apeks regs - so if I need more regs, I'll be getting them off E-bay.

If you find anything you really like, it's a good idea to buy enough to last, before it's discontinued or replaced by something "New! Improved!" that's not nearly as good.:(

Mike

[jdsffa]

Coming from a truly poor college student (who is married), I have amassed quite a selection of regs. My open water reg I use for teaching is A Sherwood Brutt w/ Dive rite balanced 2nd's. This is a tough reg easy to rebuild and almost indestructible and I like its set up for teaching. For my cave gear I has a GS 2000 and some might laugh but I've had it to 200 ft and it a great breathing reg, they down fall is it is a ***** to rebuild. on my other post I have a DR3000 also a wonderful reg easy to maintain and a great breather. For my stage bottle's I have an Oceanic 1st and 2nd, an Apex 1st and 2nd, a 2 1976 aqua lungs 1 for a stage 1 for O2( my dad's old regs) all of them are good regs some are harder to work on than others. When it comes down to it, after using all of these, I am sticking to the DR and the Genesis for cave and the brutt for open water and beginning to replace the rest so I don't have to look for so many different rebuild kits and I like their breathing and setups the best.

[Puttzer]

I was going to recommend my Atomic M-1s: but both have "failed" in the last three months

One was new and the other serviced w/i 6 months.

[mfascuba]

Poseidon Cyclon 300's!!

Or DR, or Scubapro, or Salvo. Problem with the Cylcons is parts are just about unavailable, even from the people who used to get them all the time. Scubapro parts are tough to get unless you know somebody. DR or Salvo, call them and place the order, no problem

Mark

[Slüdge]

Scubapro parts are tough to get unless you know somebody.

Shoot me a PM.

[trident1977]

You guys forgot to mention the best breathing reg ever created......

Sherwood SR1

This reg is awesome! Lower work of breathing than any other and also but most important is lowest exhaltion resistance. This equates to the smoothest breathing flow and has a two year or 300 dive service interval plus free parts for life! Go ahead and try to beat that .

[newman_diver]

I dive the Apeks DS4-XTX50. Good combination. Breathes nice, very adjustable. They have been proven to great depths as well. There's not a lot of difference in the second stages so you could stick with a TX50 and save a few bucks. Internals are the same. The only difference I know of is the XTX50 can be modified for left or right hand inlet. Hope this helps.

Tyler

[cavediver256]

The original question asked if there was any brand anyone would definitely not recommend.

My worst ever experience with a regulator was in the early 1990's taking a pair made by a well known European manufacturer to be serviced only to be told 'no can do' because the manufacturer had stopped making service kits for that model!!!! Great to learn that a pair of 6 year old regulators effectively had to be scrapped. I should add that being English Europe is that land mass the other side of the English Channel.

Pete I think you and I may have bought some of the same regulators !!!! I have quite a few laying around. About all they are good for now is paperweights. They worked fine while they were in use, but consciously I could not continue to use them until they quit...especially in a cave....:?