Aqualung vs Hog

[divad]

just email jack
Jack Schmidt

Thanks. I was trying to find Jack's Atlanta.

 

[Tbar]

my main concern buying the aqualung legends is id be buying from Planet Multi Store in italy on ebay and i'm not sure how any warranty would work. iv asked Planet Multi Store with no response as of yet. plus there is a language problem there.

I have used Planet for regs and computers service has been fine. I too am in Australia. I have also used cisub.marina.di.carrara on eBay.

Particularly with regs, I am not greatly worried with warranty. They are lumps of metal with a few moving and consumable parts. If there is a problem a service kit will generally cover the consumable parts and issue. Given the eBay pricing vs the local pricing I see I am a long way ahead and have had no faulty products!

I am not suggesting you buy Scubapro but use them as an example as that is what I own. I have purchased Scubapro gear (Regs and BCs) second-hand and from overseas (7 reg sets and 7 BCs). My experience has been that SP have fixed the only issue I have had, some damage to a second-hand BC and they did free and paid freight. They did not require proof of purchase and I was open with the LDS and happy to fix myself or pay if the price was okay...

So if you get the right price from OS then you must take a calculated risk! I don't see a risk dealing with Planet.

 

[RILEY]

thanks every 1 for the help iv decided on the aqualung xl. only things left to decide is din or yoke . I like DIN as i feel there less likely to have a bad o-ring/blow out, but i have rented tanks that didnt have the removable yoke insert's and DIN to yoke Adaptors usually hit my back when diving

do i wanna spend an extra $50 for the Supreme version prob not but they isnt really any info i can find to say at X temp the Supreme will have less chance of freezing. dont plan on diving in the cold stuff so im guessing id be wasting money. when they say cold water rated what do the define as cold like ice diving or like 5c or something.

 

[diversteve]

and it really is a no brainer... just opposite of what tbone said:
since all this is just tbone's somewhat qualified Opinion:

Add in lack of ability to self service, and vastly inferior hose routing, and it really is a no brainer... just opposite of what Steve said.

Or do you profess to have more knowledge of reg design than the entire Aqualung reg engineering dept.?

It's a $24 difference. You can't honestly claim you would take a Hog over an Aqualung for that difference...btw don't you dive Poseidon's also - another "Premium" brand certainly IMO. Why if HOG is so great.

Public OPINION being most of what matters here - I see more votes for Aqualung...

 

[Tbar]

For Australia I would get Yoke. Most dive operators will have some DIN tanks but it can be problematic.

You can get a kit to convert to DIN if you need in the future such as Aqua Lung 300 Bar (4350 psi) DIN Conversion Kit for Titan. This is a conversion not an adaptor. I have a number of these for my Scubapro regs just in case...

 

[axxel57]

hog d1 is a tried and true design, it is a copy of the apeks DST. nobody is stopping you from servicing your own AL/Apeks regs, just getting parts is harder.

HOG is a great option for someone looking for good value in the US. pricing outside the US is not as low though and the main advantage for the big companies eg AL/SP becomes more useful outside the US because their dealer networks are larger internationally. not everyone is looking to service their own regs or mail them somewhere in order to get serviced.

i would personally go with the legend set if the price difference is that small.

Just curious.

The D1 seems to be a clone of the Apeks DST and I haven't had a lot of them on my workbench, but just two days ago I had to repair two of them and they came up with the same thing I had seen before.

I'm not a fan of HOG, and one reason is that all HOGs I was working on up to now had an IP difference of 8 - 12psi between full and near empty tanks.

With Apeks/ Aqualung 1sts I have usually between 0-5psi IP difference.

Maybe some HOG owners could check, since I have been working only on about five different HOGs, those quite lousy qualities might be coincidence.

 

[tbone1004]

and it really is a no brainer... just opposite of what tbone said:
since all this is just tbone's somewhat qualified Opinion:
Or do you profess to have more knowledge of reg design than the entire Aqualung reg engineering dept.?

It's a $24 difference. You can't honestly claim you would take a Hog over an Aqualung for that difference...btw don't you dive Poseidon's also - another "Premium" brand certainly IMO. Why if HOG is so great.

Public OPINION being most of what matters here - I see more votes for Aqualung...

yes, at that difference I would 100% purchase Hogs. I actually sold quite a few XTX50/DST and ATX50/DST's to switch to Hogs because of the lack of parts availability. I do dive Poseidons, however I have never and will never purchase them used. On average I spend $300usd/doubles set, so two firsts and two seconds, then have to spend another $100 or so in parts to service them. The lack of swivel turret is the deal breaker for me, and there just isn't any advantage of buying the Aqualungs over the Hog's unless you are planning on reselling them at a later date, in which case the Aqualung will hold its value a bit better. If you plan on keeping them, then I would 100% go with the Hogs due to superior hose routing, and ability to self service.
I choose Poseidons because of the way they breathe, and the stupid low cost of buying them used, no other company offers a regulator that breathes like a Poseidon. Hollis likes to think they do, but the 500se is literally a piece of junk, especially when compared to the Xstream it was blatantly copying *which I have no problem with copying, just do it properly...*

What does Aqualungs reg design department and my knowledge of regulator design have anything to do with this discussion? A hose port at the bottom and swivel turret gives better hose routing for singles, and doubles, and a swivel turret offers much better hose routing for sidemount. That is what it is. Aqualung chooses not to offer that hose routing option, so I choose not to purchase or recommend them. They are nice regs, don't get me wrong, but they would never work for me. Hog is so great because they are cheap, you can take a class to learn to service them yourself, and even if you choose not to take the class, you can purchase parts freely. Aqualung is 100% the opposite, expensive, and absolutely no possibility of ever servicing them yourself. As a tech diver, that limitation is a deal breaker.

In this case, I would choose to spend $494 and go with the D1 first stage with classic second stages. The difference in the second stages is purely aesthetic, and while the first stage on the D3 has some nice features, the meaningful differences are also purely aesthetic. So we are over $100 cheaper in up front purchase, and $50 cheaper in service for each cycle, that is really a no brainer, go with the Hog. What Steve has still failed to mention, is what makes Aqualung "premium" over the regs from ODS. There is no quality difference, there is no performance difference, so what is there?

 

[Lorenzoid]

The D1 seems to be a clone of the Apeks DST and I haven't had a lot of them on my workbench, but just two days ago I had to repair two of them and they came up with the same thing I had seen before.

I haven't taken the HOG service class yet, so please excuse any ignorance my post may reflect. Specifically what problem are you referring to by "the same thing I had seen before"?

I'm not a fan of HOG, and one reason is that all HOGs I was working on up to now had an IP difference of 8 - 12psi between full and near empty tanks.

Is that the "thing"?

If this is an inherent problem in the HOG design, then if the Apeks DST and HOG are truly identical designs, how could the Apeks not have the same problem? Have you serviced a lot of Apeks DST? I'm guessing from your statement that you don't know the answer, but I thought I would ask it in case someone else has an opinion.

I'm interested in all this because at this point, between my wife and me, we have two sets of doubles regs and two sets of singles regs, all HOG D1 1st stages. The deciding factor in my decision was being able to service all these myself and not having to learn to service multiple brands. The dive shop service cost for just one singles reg set--a 1st and two 2nds--is around US$100 where I am (almost in the company's backyard).

 

[tbone1004]

I haven't seen that on mine, however even if it were the case, the second stages are balanced, and it isn't going to significantly alter their breathing characteristics. This is the first that I have heard of that large of an IP swing though

 

[eelnoraa]

In what aspects do you see differences in quality that would make a difference in practice? Do you have reason to believe HOG regs fail at some point due to lower quality materials or something like that?

If you read the sentence before I mentioned about quality, I did says both will work just fine. I owned both HOG and AL Legend at this point. Been HOG owner/user for a long time. Legend was given to me by a friend, so nothing here is "I pay more for it, so it must be better"

In terms of functionality, both work just fine. I couldn't tell the difference between all the reg I have. That include Atomic M1/B2, Mk25/G250V, and HOG. So no knock on HOG's performance. In term of build quality, fit, finish, attention to detail, feel of hands, to me, Legend is one level above HOG. Now, will I pay US retail for Legend over HOG, definitely not. If Legend is only $24 more than HOG, will I go for Legend, you bet. If for nothing else, when you want to sell your reg, you will recovery more than $24 from Legend.