It's been fun reading this since
@BoltSnap did the reveal. It's fun to see all the speculation.
EVERYTHING Scubapro does is incremental. Just enough to tease the FOMO on the latest and greatest. So let's dissect this, shall we?
On the engineering front, it's bound to be superb. SP has the capital and history to do things well; just not quickly. Another thing you can count on is that Scubapro will use old parts. You can save a lot of money if you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes it means you keep making the same mistakes (see below).
But Scubapro appeals to the
broad diving population, not the niche. That's where the sales are. So the Mk17E2 is A LITTLE lighter. A LITTLE smaller. If weight savings were your determining factor, you'd have a forged Hollis DIN DC-7 or a Zeagle F8, or even a new Mares 22 Abyss, all of which have NO excess metal, at the cost of less cold resistance. But the Mk17E2 needs to be EN250a, so there's more brass heat sink. And more weight.
Nothing wrong with two springs. Less height, and the Poseidon 300 did that 50 years ago.
Sealed reg is nice for maintenance, but here is where I have some heartburn. IF the environmental seal is the same as the Mk17/Mk19E, then Scubapro missed a chance to be better. That seal consistently does not hold, and 75% of them bubble up, causing a 3-10' delay in ambient pressure sensing on descent. But you can't see it, because Scubapro hides the seal under a bumper cap. Maybe SP thickened it a hair, but if not, count me disappointed. Virtually everybody's env seal is better than SP.
As for the HP ports, meh. If you mount your transmitter direct to the reg, you'll see an improvenent. And the fight over "failure points" has been going on for years. But after returning last week from 47 panga dives in Anilao, where the crew "helpfully" yanks your entire 50lb rig from the water up over the gunwale so you don't have to climb the ladder with it, what are the odds that 47 times out of 47, the crew would grab the tank valve and first stage, and NOT your transmitter? Jes' sayin'. My transmitter goes on an 18" hose, bolt snapped to my waist (with a mini button gauge) so there's no signal drop-out to my computer, and there's no "handle" to tempt boat crew. Why the pony button gauge and extra failure point?
Because now the crew can see my tank pressure when they've set up the gear for us before we climb on board. 2 of 47 tank valves were not tight when they carried them to the panga, and they had to switch in the boat's spare so I had a full tank for those two dives. With no button gauge, they'd have had to wait until I arrived with my computer to confirm that my tank was full and good to go.
So we'll have a great reg, I'm sure. Mk17 guys will have something new to buy. And now SP has both turreted and plain current models. Great performance; very stable IP matching (unlike the DC-7, which is "overbalanced"). The Mk17E2 is just not as light as it could be. And then there's that env seal. Yawn.
If only they'd seal their Mk25EVO...
. You must not keep track of camera models
, especially OM Systems, talk about confusing, like OM1Mark 2 III IV, like what? The Mark 19 of course has a turret that makes it as big as a battleship and nearly as heavy, so without a turret it could not be a 19? In which case it would be the Mark 19 Evo 2 Compact 1! WTH!
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