Is a hose upgrade worth it?

[tbone1004]

I'm not a fan of the braided long hoses, either, for all the reasons mentioned above. I will add that they float strangely when deployed, and I don't really like that.

I also agree with what PaloPinto said - when dealing with a long hose, you won't really miss the swivel. I really like 70 /110 degree swivel elbow in any other circumstance I feel a swivel is needed, and have never felt cheated by not having an omnidirectional swivel. These elbow swivels work great on a short hose, though, or on sidemount regs. Oh...and they can be found cheap!

for sidemount and stages the ball swivels work a lot better because when you stow them, the regs can go back to straight. At $25 from Cave Adventurers, it's worth the premium over the angle adapters, but the omni's aren't really worth paying 4x the price.

 

[Scared Silly]

DRIS quoted me $109 on another Atomic hose w/ the swivel. Seems like a heck of a lot for a hose. That said, I haven't had the chance to dive it yet, so don't have any sense yet of whether I like the swivel that much better. I'm keeping my options open at this point.

Watch flea bay as Atomic long hoses with a swivel come up for sale from time to time.

 

[kr2y5]

I am just in the process of upgrading a bunch of my braided hoses to regular rubber. I liked them at first, but in the end, especially the braided long hose started to bother me, after a bunch of drills it eventually always wants to tangle up, and it tends to catch on stuff. The recent reports of problems with braided hoses convinced me to give up on them. I never felt the need for a swivel. I would assume a swivel on the long hose will just get in the way of function. I'm trying to imagine doing an S-drill with a floppy second stage...

 

[ripman3]

I use the miflex hose on my primary and secondary and i love it. I don't feel the hose on my neck. With or without the hood. I like that when i turn my head to the right it does not push the reg. Now that being said, i only used them about 20 times. So only time will tell.