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Scuba pro, over hyped & over priced. Have never had a problem with leisure pro very happy with there products and there service. Being concerned about mixing gear should be the least of your worries. It's about having fun and enjoying the sport not who looks the best at the dive sight. It's about what works best for you and what your going to do with it. By the sound of it you don't do much diving and that's a ridiculous amount of money for no more then you do(as per what your saying) There's a ton of gear out there that's as good if not better for a lot less in price. None of my gear is matched but it's what works best for me. Bare Blackwing BCD, Bare 1M wetsuit, Bare 5M wetsuit. Hollis M1 mask, Hollis 1st stage with Hollis regs. Galileo luna computer and oceanic V16 split fins. My tanks don't even match, 1 is a Faber 80 steel and 1 is a Luxfer 80 alum. Again my gear is setup for what works best for me, just because it doesn't match does not mean it's bad gear.
PfcAJ
Contributor
Ya'll know they say you catch more flies with honey, but you catch more honeys by lookin' fly.
CuzzA
Wetwork for Hire
I don't go diving with matching logos on all my gear, but I sure as hell don't go looking like a dumpster diver.*
*And by dumpster diver I mean garbage cans, not the @dumpsterDiver (Hope he comes back to the board)
DaveJo127
Contributor
Eric Sedletzky
Contributor
I look like a total garage sale diver.
I have many wetsuits, a few are custom made. Some are all torn up from gnarly shore entries and exits, boat cleaning, lobster diving, etc. Some of my regs are almost 40 years old. I have old Scubapro MK5's with all metal 109's, old Conshelfs, a few newer regs like a MK20 that I never use anymore. Nothing matches, I have SP second stages on an Aqualung first stage, which bappened to be free. My newest reg is an SP MK2 that I bought new in 2001 as a stage bottle reg. I went without a computer for years because I figured tables worked fine for the simple shore dives I do.
I have a home made backplate, homemade neoprene foot socks, a few of my masks were salvaged from the ocean floor on beach dives but weren't down long enough to get crusty so they still work fine and are good condition. Most of my tanks are freebie 72's that people gave me thinking they were junk, but they passed hydro so I use them. I cast my own weights and use a mis-mosh of whatever I can find as long as it all adds up to perfect weighting. I've salvaged several weightbelts through the years and still use the weights. My favorite game bag is one I found almost completely buried in the sand full of a limit of dead abalone that some diver lost coming in. My fins are Jets with homemade heavy bungee heel straps, Turtle fins with homemade spring straps, and a pair of long fins.
So I look anything but uniform.
I added up once how much the gear costed that I happened to be using on a particular outing and it was only like $600 because of all the freebie and DIY stuff that I made use out of. Diving can be so easy!
It doesn't take a crap load of gear and you don't have to spend a ton of money.
The dive shops don't like people like me.
Then there are people who look at people like me in disgust and feel it's reckless to trust ones life with old inferior non matching "life support equipment", and that some day we will surely die for the error of our ways.
I have many wetsuits, a few are custom made. Some are all torn up from gnarly shore entries and exits, boat cleaning, lobster diving, etc. Some of my regs are almost 40 years old. I have old Scubapro MK5's with all metal 109's, old Conshelfs, a few newer regs like a MK20 that I never use anymore. Nothing matches, I have SP second stages on an Aqualung first stage, which bappened to be free. My newest reg is an SP MK2 that I bought new in 2001 as a stage bottle reg. I went without a computer for years because I figured tables worked fine for the simple shore dives I do.
I have a home made backplate, homemade neoprene foot socks, a few of my masks were salvaged from the ocean floor on beach dives but weren't down long enough to get crusty so they still work fine and are good condition. Most of my tanks are freebie 72's that people gave me thinking they were junk, but they passed hydro so I use them. I cast my own weights and use a mis-mosh of whatever I can find as long as it all adds up to perfect weighting. I've salvaged several weightbelts through the years and still use the weights. My favorite game bag is one I found almost completely buried in the sand full of a limit of dead abalone that some diver lost coming in. My fins are Jets with homemade heavy bungee heel straps, Turtle fins with homemade spring straps, and a pair of long fins.
So I look anything but uniform.
I added up once how much the gear costed that I happened to be using on a particular outing and it was only like $600 because of all the freebie and DIY stuff that I made use out of. Diving can be so easy!
It doesn't take a crap load of gear and you don't have to spend a ton of money.
The dive shops don't like people like me.
Then there are people who look at people like me in disgust and feel it's reckless to trust ones life with old inferior non matching "life support equipment", and that some day we will surely die for the error of our ways.
This thing about Scubapro being overhyped is becoming another Scubaboard cliche. While there is plenty of quality gear available today and in the past other than Scubapro I remember a time when there was a clear difference and the R109/MkV and several other Scubapro regs like the G250 are not, excuse me, over hyped in any sense. Exactly what fin has had the legendary service of the Scubapro Jet.
And have innovated several types of gear and were early with the frameless masks and I was diving a Scubapro wing (with plastic plate) in the late 70s before there was such a thing a "wing" as a term regarding a BC.
In fact, I was told by Pro Dive of Fort Lauderdale, a PADI business, that I could not dive the SP wing because it would not float me face up and they specifically made me remove my weight pouches from my cambands because they could not be jettisoned easily. My how times change when everybody has fixed trim weights and the wing is the darling of the diving world you would think though the only person using one that I ever see is me. I did not see a single wing/BP other than mine in my recent Florida trip, not a one anywhere.
N
And have innovated several types of gear and were early with the frameless masks and I was diving a Scubapro wing (with plastic plate) in the late 70s before there was such a thing a "wing" as a term regarding a BC.
In fact, I was told by Pro Dive of Fort Lauderdale, a PADI business, that I could not dive the SP wing because it would not float me face up and they specifically made me remove my weight pouches from my cambands because they could not be jettisoned easily. My how times change when everybody has fixed trim weights and the wing is the darling of the diving world you would think though the only person using one that I ever see is me. I did not see a single wing/BP other than mine in my recent Florida trip, not a one anywhere.
N
Eric Sedletzky
Contributor
My first set of Jets costed me $66.This thing about Scubapro being overhyped is becoming another Scubaboard cliche. While there is plenty of quality gear available today and in the past other than Scubapro I remember a time when there was a clear difference and the R109/MkV and several other Scubapro regs like the G250 are not, excuse me, over hyped in any sense. Exactly what fin has had the legendary service of the Scubapro Jet.
And have innovated several types of gear and were early with the frameless masks and I was diving a Scubapro wing (with plastic plate) in the late 70s before there was such a thing a "wing" as a term regarding a BC.
In fact, I was told by Pro Dive of Fort Lauderdale, a PADI business, that I could not dive the SP wing because it would not float me face up and they specifically made me remove my weight pouches from my cambands because they could not be jettisoned easily. My how times change when everybody has fixed trim weights and the wing is the darling of the diving world you would think though the only person using one that I ever see is me. I did not see a single wing/BP other than mine in my recent Florida trip, not a one anywhere.
N
Shotmaster
Contributor
I have been been using Scubapro since 1973. I started with a MK5/R109, I have two MK25s, one has X650 and the other has S600. I used the MK5 forever, because nothing else was an improvement until the MK25 came out. I have had Jetfins since 1973 and just upgraded to the Novas. I started diving with no BC, then the horse collar, the original Scubapro wing setup, and have had two Classic BCDs since then. Scubapro has been the leader in this industry for a long time. There is a reason for it. The same reason that Mercedes and BMW sit at the top. Most of the people I see bashing Scubapro are not users of the equipment. You can't go wrong buying Scubapro. You can buy cheaper, but then again, it's not Scubapro. Some people have issues with a dive shop, that problem would be the same no matter which brand that shop sells, and should not be pinned on the manufacturer just because the dealer is an "A" hole. All my Scubapro gear has served me well during 43 years, and when I bought a different brand, it usually had a short working life and got replaced by what I should have bought the first time.
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