I'm newly certified as of this past March and have done 2 dives since then after my OW/AOW dives. It was on a vacation to the Keys and I did 2 1 tank dives one morning.
I've decided I want to get my own gear at this point. I'm also primarily going to be just doing vacation diving down in warm waters. I live in MD and there is a chance that I would do some quarry diving around here locally, kind of just to practice and get in the water, but I won't be doing it until the water warms up a bit to something I can dive in with my 3mm wetsuit, if that is really even possible. I honestly haven't looked into it yet.
I'm planning on doing like 10-20 dives a year, just depending on the schedule that year, and as mentioned, will be down in warm water for the most part in salt water.
I've done tons of research and I'm kind of leaning towards either SP or Atomic for the regulators.
Specifically, I'm looking at either SP MK17 or MK25 with an S560, S600, or G260.
For Atomic, I'm looking pretty much at the Z2.
The 2 recent regs I used for my OW/AOW and then fund dives after were rentals. I don't remember what I had on my fun dive down in the keys, but after looking at the pictures I have from my certification dives, I am almost certain that I was using a lower end Aqualung Calypso regulator based off of the looks, so I'm curious as to how it compares.
I found a local shop that is going to let me test out all of the SP regulators this upcoming weekend. I also found a different shop that has the Atomic Z2 to test out, although they seem to charge their normal rental/pool/air fees to try out regs that you may purchase, which would end up costing like $50 just to test it out, so I'm not sure if I will do that or not.
One of my concerns about the Atomic Z2 is what I've heard about maintaining/cleaning them. It sounds like the true way to clean them after dives in salt water is to have it hooked up to a tank while you soak them. Based on my diving experience so far, that seems like it would be kind of hard to do logistically while on a boat coming back from a dive site, or after you get to the shore. Then I wouldn't be able to clean them off when back at the hotel. An option is to get a tank to have at home for cleaning purposes only, but that would add to the cost as well as just be more of a hassle than not having to do that.
The Atomic stuff is definitely cheaper than the SP stuff though as well, so there is that too. But the way I see it is that this is my lifeline though, so paying for quality parts is not too much of an issue if it's a few hundred extra.
The LDS that sells the SP stuff is closer for sure, so servicing it there would be a bit easier.
I've also been wondering about purchasing some used SP stuff on these forums because I could save a few hundred bucks. But, then I'd also feel a bit weird if I go try out these SP regulators, like them and then purchase them used for $300 cheaper on here, and then take them to that shop to service them down the road. it's kind of an ethical issue but I'm not sure how these kinds of scenarios are handled in the SCUBA world.
So I'm basically just looking for some input from experienced people as to what they think would be the best route for me to go in this scenario. It would also be cool to hear from people who are less experienced and have gone through this process to and hear how it went for them. I am definitely very curious to hear from Atomic owners as to how the whole cleaning process is, and if it is a hassle since it's kind of special in the way they have to be maintained.
