I rarely join in internet chat discussions, but in this case I'm compelled to comment. As a preamble for the purposes of qualifying my expertise, I've been professionally involved in diving for 37 years (ex-Chairman of NAUI, founder and ex-President of TDI/SDI training agencies, ex-President and CEO of UWATEC, founder and ex-publisher of Fathoms magazine as well as editing Scuba Times, Deep Tech, and Rodale's Scuba Diving, ex-world depth record holder on scuba 475 ft., co-founder of the world's largest diving operation Ocean Quest International, and author/editor of 37 books...), I'm retired now and living the good life but still traveling all over the world diving on special projects.
The best regulators in the frigging world are made by Atomic. They have superb performance, flawless reliability, and the best customer service in the industry. I've been using their Titanium series since 1996 and would not even think of diving with anything else. The guys that run the company are the best examples of business ethics you'll find. You can buy an Atomic regulator and rely on it for virtually any type of diving. I've known Doug, Dean, and Seamus for years and you can trust your life with their products.
It's the best investment you'll ever make in diving equipment. I can afford anything and most companies would pay me to use their gear. I choose Atomic because it's simply the best stuff out there.
Bret Gilliam
diving since 1959, professionally since January 1971
Hi Bret
It is great to see you here.
About the Atomic regulators, first I will say that I don’t own any and have limited experience with them, but they are very impressive. From a quality stand point they could very well be a step above any other regulator.
On the other hand they have made some design selections that as most things in life, have advantages and disadvantages.
Three design decisions come to mind that I will try to briefly point out their pros and cons.
1) The use of titanium obviously has excellent corrosion advantages, but as many things it is not a solve it all material. It does have some disadvantages…many of which (as machinability) translate into cost, but there are others.
2) The use of a seat saver in the second stage by retracting the volcano orifice is kind of a neat idea, but IMHO it has too many undesirable side effect. It is an extra complication with extra moving parts, it opens the second stage to water and contaminants if the regulator is not pressurized, you can’t do an on the spot vacuum test of the alternate second if air leaks back form the other second stage. The benefit of this feature is IMO not worth all the side effects.
3) The use of a piston first stage has many nice features for simplicity and performance, but the geometry is less that ideal for a good environmental seal. There are ways to design an environmental seal in a flow through piston regulator, but using a lubricant filled chamber is a mess. Back 30 years ago that was the state of the art, but now a days it would be close to my last choice in design. It is obviously a design compromise that the end user may not see (if it is serviced very regularly), but IMHO it is a compromised I would not want to deal with…I do my own service, but complicating the work of any technician is also not conducive for them to do their best job.
All I am pointing out is that it is a matter of choices…there is no perfect design…there are always compromises in any design.
Over all I think they are excellent design and superb quality…if money was no object I may own one or two to play with when I am not using one of my double hose regulators…on the other hand, they would probably collect too much dust.
