favourite reg

[alcina]

No one has a favourite reg set-up for their fun dives, photo dives and/or tech diving?

I would really be interested to hear which regs you personally like and why. Thanks.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

My traditional favorite is the Mk 10 D400 (the old D400 with the metal orifice - they breathe better). The Mk 10 is bullet proof and a great performer.

I am also a fan of the Mk 10 Balanced Adjustable. It's an older second stage and no longer in production but offers every thing the G250 does (except a rather useless viva adjustment) in a stonger metal case with better heat transfer characteristics for cold water diving.

I currently dive with MK20 and Mk 25 D400's and use the Mk 10 Balanced Adjustables on stage bottles, saftey tanks etc.

However, I am not seeing any real advantage to the Mk 20-25 over the Mk 10 and am not happy with the quality of the current service kits and poppet assemblies for the D400. Consequently I am seriously considering going back to using the Mk 10 Balanced Adjustable as my primary regs.

Given that I keep going back to them, and in light of recent problems with D400 parts, the Mk 10 Balanced Adjustable probably qualifies a my all time favorite reg. It's a little old, given that it has been out of production longer than many people have bene diving, but to be honest, their has really not been any significant improvement in reg performance in the last 15-20 years anyway.

Improvements, in my opinion, have been limited primarily to styling and phenolic resin/graphite composite cases (which offer more in terms of lower cost of production than they do perfromance increases.)

 

[Genesis]

The Mk10 cannot be beaten for simplicity.

The Mk10+ has the newer piston and seat design of the 20/25, and is significantly faster to react to demand. However, I can't tell the difference on the end of the hose

Both are dirt-simple to maintain/rebuild. The Mk10 has the advantage in that you get THREE seats in a rebuild kit, and with shim changes can almost always use at least two of the three.

The G250 breathes nearly as well as the newer G250HP/S600 series, but has a metal air tube and doesn't cause as bad of a cottonmouth problem for most people - myself included!

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I converted two of my Mk 10's to Mk 10 Plus standard but always had problems with the reliability of the seat and converted them back to Mk 10 standard. Of course then there was also I think a recall and some design changes so I suspect the newer Mk 10 Plus seats don't have the same issues.

But I also could never tell the difference in performance at the second stage.