Hatul
Contributor
Hi Bret
1) The use of titanium obviously has excellent corrosion advantages, but as many things it is not a solve it all material. It does have some disadvantages many of which (as machinability) translate into cost, but there are others.
2) The use of a seat saver in the second stage by retracting the volcano orifice is kind of a neat idea, but IMHO it has too many undesirable side effect. It is an extra complication with extra moving parts, it opens the second stage to water and contaminants if the regulator is not pressurized, you cant do an on the spot vacuum test of the alternate second if air leaks back form the other second stage. The benefit of this feature is IMO not worth all the side effects.
3) The use of a piston first stage has many nice features for simplicity and performance, but the geometry is less that ideal for a good environmental seal. There are ways to design an environmental seal in a flow through piston regulator, but using a lubricant filled chamber is a mess. Back 30 years ago that was the state of the art, but now a days it would be close to my last choice in design. It is obviously a design compromise that the end user may not see (if it is serviced very regularly), but IMHO it is a compromised I would not want to deal with I do my own service, but complicating the work of any technician is also not conducive for them to do their best job.
All I am pointing out is that it is a matter of choices there is no perfect design there are always compromises in any design.
Over all I think they are excellent design and superb quality if money was no object I may own one or two to play with when I am not using one of my double hose regulators on the other hand, they would probably collect too much dust.
Hi Luis, What do you think of the Sherwood SR1 which did so well on the latest Scuba Diving magazine testing.
Adam
