Octo or Air 2

[Parrothead_Diver]

Ok, before anybody bites my head off, I am sure that this has been hashed out before. So if it has please point me in the right direction.

My wife and I are fairly new to diving and are going to be purchasing all new equipment in the near future. The question I have is which is better, an Octo set-up or an Air 2?

My thoughts are the following:
1) The Octo is more common and in an OOA situation it would be more familiar to an OOA diver. (Not my buddy, as they should be familiar with my equipment before the dive.)
2) The Air 2 is more streamlined and eliminates a piece of equipment that could possibly fail.

Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly apprecaited.

 

[StSomewhere]

If your BC power inflator ever went nuts and continued to pump air into your BC, you could just disconnect it to prevent an uncontrolled ascent, etc. With an Air 2, etc. you would have also just disconnected your octo in the process. One failure means two pieces of important equipment are non-functional. YMMV.

Edit: The piece of equipment I've decided to eliminate is the snorkel attached to my mask. I'm replacing it with a foldable snorkel for use when its actually useful.

 

[lamont]

you should look into option C: long hose

 

[tedwhiteva]

I recommend Option A or C - I just went to long hose and wish I did earlier. Octo is much more common, especiaally if you dive trips with different people.

 

[voop]

Long or short hose, I don't really care either way: it's a regulator on a hose, and you can (almost) always change the hose-length relatively easy. Perhaps, however, looking at "an additional regulator of same specifications as your primary" rather than an el-cheapo octo would make sense?

I would stay clear of Air2 and their cousins, though. As has been pointed out, combining inflator and AAS means that one failure can render two important pieces of equipment useless at one stroke. Not good....

 

[The Kraken]

You'll get a great amount of downplay on the intergrated octo/bc inflator combo. The main reason for this is that the regulator is intergrated WITH the inflator.
If you still want to streamline and rid yourself of an extra hose, you may want to look at the Sherwood Shadow+. This is a stand-alone octo that happens to SHARE the l/p BC inflator hose. With this setup, you can disconnect the BC inflator but still maintain an independent, working AAS.

By the way, what does "YMMV" stand for?

 

[The Kraken]

The only down side with the Sherwood Shadow+ would be that it's not in the "golden triangle". But as long as you're willing to donate your primary, that shouldn't be an issue either.

 

[keyshunter]

You'll get a great amount of downplay on the intergrated octo/bc inflator combo. The main reason for this is that the regulator is intergrated WITH the inflator.
If you still want to streamline and rid yourself of an extra hose, you may want to look at the Sherwood Shadow+. This is a stand-alone octo that happens to SHARE the l/p BC inflator hose. With this setup, you can disconnect the BC inflator but still maintain an independent, working AAS.

By the way, what does "YMMV" stand for?

YMMY=your mileage may vary

Let me begin by saying that I like most Sherwood regs. Not the best breathers, perhaps, but they are very rugged and reliable. But, in my opinion, the Shadow+ is one of their mistakes. It's addition makes the inflator hose very cumbersome. Also, since it is further up the hose than an integrated inflator mouthpiece, it shortens the effective length of the hose when compared to integrated inflators which makes it even more difficult to turn your head to see what is going on with your donee, who is, of course, using your primary. Further, even though I had the Shadow+
I owned tuned to the teeth, it was still a lousy breather.

This seems like a rather high price to pay for the ability to use the Shadow+ independent of the bc inflator hose.

I don't like integrated inflators, preferring a good old fashioned separate octopus. But if I was forced to choose, I would pick an integrated inflator over the Shadow+
without hesitation.

 

[android]

I have the Atomic SS1.

I think the whole "the inflator is going to go crazy and inflate you BC until you're a Poseiden Missile" is a red herring.

First, the whole unit is very high quality. The SS1 reg breaths as well as my B2.
Secondly, the whole unit comes off and gets stored in the reg bag, so it's not beat around with the BCD.

I'm sure crappy cheap inflators on rental gear have "gone crazy", but if anyone has ever had a well maintained, high quality Air2 go crazy, please chime up.

 

[StSomewhere]

Android, the power inflator on my Oceanic BC was recalled due to a sticky inflator problem. I now have the older model inflator, I'm getting the part replaced but will probably continue to use the older inflator b/c its simple and tested by thousands of divers over thousands of hours.

Hey, stuff happens. YMMV.