Atomic Z1/B2, Apeks atx50, MK25/g250

[treedawg]

I am fairly new to the dive world and am in the market for my first reg. The more I hunt for advise I end up with more questions.

I have narrowed down my search to Atomic, Scubapro and, Apeks.

How do these regs compare in performance:

Atomic Z1, B2

Scubapro MK 25/G250-S600

Apeks atx50, atx 100.

There is a local dive shop that has MK25/ R390 regs.

Which of these regs will take me from my open water cert all the way to a tech diver?

Thanks for the help...

 

[lairdb]

Which of these regs will take me from my open water cert all the way to a tech diver?

Yes.

 

[Hoosier]

Anything among your options. Please use "search" function. It has been covered so many times here.

 

[PerroneFord]

All of these regs are excellent from everything I've heard. Depending upon your path into Tech diving, the Apeks and Scubapro tend to be favored for a number of reasons, including the ability to strip a regulator underwater, clean it, and put it back together without tools. I had neve seen this done (I'm also a newbie) until a LDS gentleman stripped a Dive-Rite in front of me in the store. Took all of 10 seconds.

You may also want to fix your hoses onto samples of each of those first stages and see how they route leaving the regulator. It's often quite nice to not have your hoses shooting off toward mars as they leave the regulator. Nice hose routing means the hoses all leave the regulator pointed down. Not necessarily a big deal of open water dives, but certainly a consideratino as you move toward tech.

The other thing I've learned over the years, is that you will change equipment, perhaps several times, as you move through the process. Unless you get into something like DIR, there is a lot of latitude in what gear you use and how you configure that gear. If you do adopt the "DIR" style, you will need to adhere to some specific guidelines of what gear you buy, and how to configure that gear. The nice part of that approach is that the gear works for everything from your OW cert to cave or wreck diving. Same gear, same config, all the way through. It also tends to be cheaper in some respects than other ways to set yourself up.

Spend a few weeks poking around the board, searching for things, and enjoying yourself. I know I've learned a TON here in just a short while. This is surely the best diving forum I've ever seen.

 

[RoadWarrior]

I am fairly new to the dive world and am in the market for my first reg. The more I hunt for advise I end up with more questions.

I have narrowed down my search to Atomic, Scubapro and, Apeks.

How do these regs compare in performance:

Atomic Z1, B2

Scubapro MK 25/G250-S600

Apeks atx50, atx 100.

There is a local dive shop that has MK25/ R390 regs.

Which of these regs will take me from my open water cert all the way to a tech diver?

Thanks for the help...

All the regs you list are worthy but between them, there's a pretty wide price spread. The best assurances you can have is the knowledge that you'll get what you pay for.

 

[ofthewall]

Apeks and Scuba pro will do very well in cold water right out of the box. Atomic should have an envio kit added before going to cold water and need to be replaced every time you service the reg. All Atomics breath the same, the differences are the features and materials used. I went from an atomic Z1 to a ScubaPro MK25/S600 and MK25/G250. I have expeirienced Atomic first stages freeze on several occations. The freezing may have been the result of over use between services. The shop I worked for use atomic B1s for rentals and classes and they only serviced them once a year, so that may be the reason for the freezing but i did not want to wait for mine to freeze to find out for sure. Of course that is one reason way I do not work there any more.