Time to buy new Regs.

[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.