Well, OK, since you brought this up again, here's MY rant on it:
Failure of upstream design: I keep hearing about this hypothetical situation; I've never met anyone it's happened to, nor have the reg techs I've asked heard of it actually happening to any one they know. I DO know people that have won the lottery & that have been hit by lightening, so I guess we're looking at a probability factor that gives this "failure" a status close to that of an urban legend. The Jetstream acts up an AWFUL lot before it would crap out, and you'd need to be a Darwin Award candidate to ignore that. Other than that, I kind of LIKE the idea of a reg shutting itself off if it dies, saves me the trouble of having to do it myself while stuffing my bailout's reg in my mouth. Unfortunately the Jetstream freeflows at a slight rate for a very long period of time before it would die in the closed position and I would find that too distracting.
High cost of parts, etc.: Dealer cost of a 2nd stage rebuild kit is a little over $4, 1st stage kit is under $11. Dealer cost is $31.50 on the 7' Jetstream hose, & $24.75 on the Cyklon's. How much the retail guys gouge is up to them.
My Cyklons are dry breathers, no matter what position. Can't say that for the regs with the "standard" exhaust valves. Stand on your head with those & gurgle gurgle.
Special tools, etc: The shop down the road from me does a LOT of Poseidon work; their "special" tools are all improvised. The big ring press consists of a c-clamp & a block of wood. Lack of ingenuity (or skill) on the part of the tech isn't the regulator's fault.
"Dated design"? How often do we need to re-invent the wheel? The somewhat recent design change on their 1st stages has made them one of the best in the world, providing adequate air flows down to 1200'. I LIKE needing one 2nd stage kit to cover 30 years worth of regs.
"Touchy & finnikey"? I beat the crap out of mine, sometimes using them in stuff that only slightly resembles water. I'll run the suckers for extended periods of time between servicing with no problems, even under brutal abuse.
These things are the next best thing to the DSI 2nds used on Abysmal's regs mentioned earlier in this thread. Poseidon makes the 1st stages for Abysmal, by the way.
"Simplicity of design"? Whoa, go take a look at your Cyklon again. The rebuild kit consists of 3 0-rings, a rubber plate, and a zip tie. You adjust it by sticking your finger in & rotating the little plastic barrel. How much more simple do you want?
The current round of Poseidon badmouthing resulted from a former US distributor falling down on the job. Repair work was shoddy, parts became unavailable, and people started getting ticked off.
They never fell out of grace in Europe and the rest of the world.
Now that Viking is the new distributor for Poseidon, we're going to start seeing more and more of their products in the dive shops.
You can get brand new Poseidon regs from a few "gray market" sources in Germany & Spain for around $300.
Yo Buff, Howzzat fine Northern Diver hood working for you?
You've been stretching the time line, by the way. The Cyklons were first made in 1958; I just made a swap for one from a guy in Sweden, and it ain't going on any wall! woo HOO!
