Help with first gear purchase - regulator! Help me decide?

[kyley]

My advice is to buy your first reg (most likely for single tank) with Yoke. If later you need to do double, then buy DIN for that setup.

Yep, for sure. I doubt I'll ever have the need for a DIN setup, but if I did, buying a new 1st stage at that time would be fine. Thanks,
--Kyle

 

[ams511]

Yoke regulators can also be converted to din. For a Scubapro/Subgear reg the conversion is about $50 not sure about AL and Atomic. You could probably sell the yoke for $20, so the cost of conversion is not very high.

 

[kyley]

Hi All,
Just to close out this thread, I thought I'd share that I went with the Atomic Z2 regulator without the swivel (Z2x) and am having a miflex hose added instead. My LDS gave me a good price on it, and it sounds like possibly the smoothest breather of the bunch (he sells both the Legend and Z2 and overall likes the legend but thinks the Z2 breathes easiest). But I think the Legend, MK25/S600, and even the SubGear SG1000 would have been great choices. Take care,
--Kyle

 

[billt4sf]

The MK17 is a better cold water reg than the MK25, but unless you have a drysuit, you won't be in water even near the temps that would give the MK25 any trouble.

What temps is the MK25 suited for? We breathed from a few different regs at our LDS and I liked the MK25, though there was not much difference between them (we also tried the AquaLung Legend LX). We dive in warm waters as much as we can but we're getting into Monterey diving, I think the temps go down to the low 50's.

And yeah, we're also looking into dry suits.

Thanks,

Bill

 

[ams511]

I think the consensus is the MK-25 is good for a water temp into the high 30's, so you should be fine.