I never said there was an advantage. The 25 EVO is different than the 25. The body is different and thread pitches were changed for better cold water performance. Also it stops people from mix matching stuff. If you have an older MK25 awesome! You will have it for years to come. If you want to buy a new MK25, it will be an EVO model and it is even better. If you don't want an EVO thennnnnnn....... don't buy one. It really is that easy everyone. No need to hate on a new product. No one really bashes apple when the new I-phone come out do they? People are excited. When a new reg comes out, that is exciting. If you want something new it is available.
Tech tip for everyone...
For piston regs to function their best in fresh water below 38f, IP should be lowered for even better cold water performance. Dry clean air also important.
I understand you won't stop drinking the Scubapro EVO Kool-aid but please stop serving it.
I heard Rene spout the same thread pitch crap at a service seminar I attended. No actual explanation of how the new thread pic improves cold water performance - he just used it as the justification for throwing backward compatibility on the scrap heap for the Mk 25.
In fact, you've stated that yourself with the "stops people from mixing and matching stuff" comment. What that translates to for long term Mk 25 users and long term Scubapro customers who have happily upgraded to the latest configuration is that Scubapro is no longer interested in selling them the parts and service to do that, but instead wants to force them to buy a whole new first stage, and of course I'm confident the sales staff will want to sell them a whole new first and second stage set.
It reflects yet another change in Scubapro's marketing strategy, and most of those recent changes have basically sucked. Consider for example, the Mk 11 and Mk 17. They have the same basic first stage body and the difference has been in the sealed versus un-sealed ambient chamber. And of course in the use of a thinner diaphragm in the Mk 17 that increases the working range of the valve and thus the flow rate. It's something that can be retrofitted to the Mk 11, but Scubapro doesn't sell it that way as they want you to upgrade to a 17 to get that little bit of extra performance. In other words, Scubapro forces them selves (and their dealers) to stock two separate kits just so Scubapro can create some artificial performance distance between the two designs for sales and marketing purposes. "Screw the customer" didn't used to be Scubapro's sales model.
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And by the way thanks for the "tech tip".
I've been diving since 1985, I learned to dive in cold water, I cut my technical teeth on Lake Superior wreck diving, and I've got well over a 1000 dives below 100 ft in water temps of 35 degrees F or less in the Great Lakes, in deep alpine lakes and on ice dives. Dropping the IP on a Mk 25 is just a crutch. It will reduce the flow rate slightly, and slightly improve the odds of not getting a freeze flow, but it does not solve the Mk 25's issues on cold water deep dives. It will still require perfect cold water technique to avoid a freeze flow.
It took over a decade after Scuabpro moved away from the SPEC system to get them to even acknowledge that the TIS system in the Mk 20 and 25 just didn't cut it, that there was a valid need for a fully sealed first stage design in water temps below 40 degrees F. Just ask Dean Garraffa and Doug Toth - reg designers who used to work for Scubapro but left and started Atomic Aquatics, largely over issues like this one, and then look what they did with the Atomic first stage. It's what Scubapro could have and should have had in place of the MK 25 TIS (in all it's "better than last year's TIS" iterations) or the current Mk 25 EVO, which is just another effort to put fresh lipstick on that cold water pig.
Scubapro was more or less forced to market the out of house designed Mk 14 as a stop gap until the Mk 16 could be developed as a means to appease dealers who wanted a diaphragm design on the shelf. Scuabpro has done exceptionally well evolving the Mk 16 into the Mk 17 (and by the way made the Mk 17's much more reliable seat and poppet design retrofittable into the Mk 16). The Mk 17 is IMHO the best diaphragm first stage made for deep, cold water diving (although I would not feel under equipped with Aqualung Legend if Scubapro ever stopped making or supporting the Mk 17).
