Just got 2 "New" Double-Hose Regs!!

[Peter Guy]

Well, sort of "just got" but I am now the proud owner of two usable Double Hose Regs:

My DA that I got off Ebay has been rebuilt and tested (now it's just waiting for a final mouthpiece adjustment before I bring it home) in the pool. Great fun!!!

And then, lo and behold, a friend told me the AquaLung Mistrals were being sold at a ridiculous price by a Dive Shop in PA -- the catch was that they must be carried out of the store. For kicks I called the shop and the guy was willing to sell me a new Mistral if I could get someone to pick it up -- and it just so happens I have a "cyber friend" who lives about 30 miles from the shop. I stop by my LDS and tell the owner about my find and he says, "Don't buy it -- Let me call and see what I can get for you." He calls me back to tell me he can beat the PA price (substantially) and that the repair guy who rebuilt my DA has just ordered HIS Mistral -- I order mine.

Today I picked it up -- one of the "limited edition" versions with the signed "Certificate of Ownership" and wooden display box. I can't wait to go diving with it -- especially if I can put together a group of us all using them! (My instructor for my DM program has one, so that makes 4 from the shop.)

Now I just have to figure out how to arrange the donatable reg on a long hose! (Where DO the RB guys route their donating regs?)

 

[Mo2vation]

Well, sort of "just got" but I am now the proud owner of two usable Double Hose Regs:

My DA that I got off Ebay has been rebuilt and tested (now it's just waiting for a final mouthpiece adjustment before I bring it home) in the pool. Great fun!!!

And then, lo and behold, a friend told me the AquaLung Mistrals were being sold at a ridiculous price by a Dive Shop in PA -- the catch was that they must be carried out of the store. For kicks I called the shop and the guy was willing to sell me a new Mistral if I could get someone to pick it up -- and it just so happens I have a "cyber friend" who lives about 30 miles from the shop. I stop by my LDS and tell the owner about my find and he says, "Don't buy it -- Let me call and see what I can get for you." He calls me back to tell me he can beat the PA price (substantially) and that the repair guy who rebuilt my DA has just ordered HIS Mistral -- I order mine.

Today I picked it up -- one of the "limited edition" versions with the signed "Certificate of Ownership" and wooden display box. I can't wait to go diving with it -- especially if I can put together a group of us all using them! (My instructor for my DM program has one, so that makes 4 from the shop.)

Now I just have to figure out how to arrange the donatable reg on a long hose! (Where DO the RB guys route their donating regs?)

aside from the nostalgia factor (which is cool, I guess) - why would someone choose to dive with one of these types of regs in, you know, this century?

I'm not being provocative - I'm just not wired to understand this.

Thanks

---
Ken

 

[justleesa]

Congrats on your Mistral, looking forward to your report on it.

You're gonna have to apply for that NAVED card soon

Fantastic reg for photographers Ken, bubbles behind you - if well adjusted if can breath better than any modern reg...great conversation piece

 

[Mo2vation]

Congrats on your Mistral, looking forward to your report on it.

You're gonna have to apply for that NAVED card soon

Fantastic reg for photographers Ken, bubbles behind you - if well adjusted if can breath better than any modern reg...great conversation piece

I mean, if they're all that, how come you never see them?

The bubble thing is valid, I guess. I don't know - bubbles don't bother me too much maybe because they've always been there.

Do these things even come in DIN?

---
Ken

 

[ams511]

The other advantage is cold water performance, they won't ice up on you the way a single hose reg will.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

It's a Lloyd Bridges thing - if you have to have it explained to you, you will never understand...

 

[justleesa]

Over the years that I have been involved in vintage I can say that the following has grown and that is why the price of the double hose regs have gone up big time. I remember when you could get a reg in good condition for 50 and below....now they run over 100. Most likely that's why they made this new reg based on vintage technologies...don't re breathers have double hoses too?

I can't say I've seen one with DIN, but it doesn't mean it's not out there. Roger could answer that better than I can.

Tell you what, when you come to Oahu, we'll take you on a vintage dive and you can see the difference yourself. We just got Rogers reg with the phoenix back and you would have all the modern attachments (octo, computer, gauges and if you wanted inflator - mostly we dive w/o bc when we dive vintage).

I mean, if they're all that, how come you never see them?

The bubble thing is valid, I guess. I don't know - bubbles don't bother me too much maybe because they've always been there.

Do these things even come in DIN?

---
Ken

The other advantage is cold water performance, they won't ice up on you the way a single hose reg will.

This is true

 

[covediver]

I hope you like your Mistral as much as I like mine.

About two years ago, Aqua Lung America (aka U.S. Divers, I am not sure when they changed their name) released a “modern” version of the classic double hose regulator. Designated “Mistral” in honor of its ubiquitous single-stage, double hose regulator of the 1950s, the new regulator is a two-stage design, joined in a single unit, behind the divers head, which is where the bubbles exhaust.

One UK website noted “older divers will look back with nostalgia at the days of the original twin-hose regulator. But it had a single-stage mechanism and breathed like an asthmatic ant.” Scuba Diving magazine in an equipment review article predicted “the Mistral's unique double hose design will appeal to underwater photographers, videographers, ice divers, commercial divers, military divers, search and rescue divers, scientific divers, and anybody nostalgic for the 'good ol' diving days." Don Rockwell, president of Aqua Lung America, echoing these sentiments, notes on the company’s website "divers miss the many benefits of the double house regulators – plus, they're nostalgic for scuba equipment from the early days. So we combined the best features of the old double hose regulator – including having the bubbles come out from behind the diver's head and not obstructing the field of vision – and updated it with new modern regulator technology."

Now, I have been diving single hose regulators for a while and have never found bubbles to be particularly obstructing or bothersome. I am an older diver, who has been an underwater photographer (albeit not a very good one), videographer (ditto), search and rescue diver, and a scientific diver. I did not clamor for the return of the double-hose regulator; neither did my colleagues. Nor do I particularly long for the “good old days” that for me began more than two decades ago with the acquisition of my first regulator, a U.S. Divers Conshelf 14. At that time, many dealers already considered this reg to be “old” technology. Newer, easier breathing, and more lightweight plastic second stage regulators were rapidly relegating the heavy marine brass regulators to the bottom shelf of the glass display cases in dive shops. Nowadays, the 14 and regulators like it are more likely to appear on a dive shop’s “wall of honor” along with other “classic” regulators. I might still be using the regulator but it lacks sufficient low pressure ports to accommodate the second stage, a B.C. inflator hose, and a drysuit inflator hose—all of which I consider a necessity more than a nice to have feature. I have purchased two regulators since then, a Conshelf 21 and an Apex ATX 40. I still have and use both.

Now I will admit, I like the looks of the modern Mistral. It seductively screams “Sea Hunt,” unique,” and “novel.” When the regulator was introduced, I mentioned to a 20-something gear head with whom I Yahoo IM’d about scuba that I thought I might get one, but that the $900 suggested retail price was a real turn off. He noted that I seemed “old school.” It must have been my attitude that gave it away; I know he couldn’t see the black Converse “Chuck Taylor” high-top sneakers that I wear. I also knew that many divers felt the same way but unlike me had never dived with a double-hose regulator and did not know what a pain in the *** they could be. Sure enough, they soon started appearing on EBAY auctions and at gear sales going for as little as one-half of the original price. So I waited, watched and a couple of weeks ago I scored one.

 

[Peter Guy]

Ken,

I'll bring both (?) down to LA in May and let you try them?

OK, why buy them?

a. The DA was purely for nostalgia purposes. I loved my old AquaMaster that I used when I first started diving in the mid-60's. It was cranky (of course) but it was COOL!

b. I really do hate the bubbles from the single hose. For whatever reason, the noise just bothers me and that doesn't happen with the two hose.

c. I bought the Mistral because it saved me from getting a Phoenix mod for the DA - and the price was so good (REALLY good!) that it didn't make sense to pass it up and go for the Phoenix.

I intend to dive the Mistral on recreational dives, including our trips, because:

a. I want the bubbles behind me;
b. It will make people look at me funnier than normal; and
c. It will REALLY P*ssoff someone I know!

 

[TSandM]

a. I want the bubbles behind me;
b. It will make people look at me funnier than normal; and
c. It will REALLY P*ssoff someone I know!

Sigh.

I may yet get to find out what instabuddies are all about . . .