drbill, your xtek bcd is an AFTER acquisition product.
Besides, Johnson purchased Sonoform which only made about 90% of the BCD's for the entire market at one time or another. It still has nothing to do with the pull from testing.
ALL the manuacturers who submit their gear for testing send in gear that has been fine-tuned. As it SHOULD be from the local dealer who sells it to the diver before they walk out the door. Just like cars, it's a dealer prep to make sure it is within specs. Even the manufacturers and Rodale's all say to have your local dealer do a prep before it goes out the door. Its just one more quality assurance check. There are no 'ringers', that would be idiotic for manufacturers to spend extra money on extra molds and manufacturing that they weren't going to sell.
SP is probably pissed at Rodale's because of all the advertising dollars that the rag receives and it's testing results biased toward whoever is keeping the most consistent advertising dollars coming in. Kind of like the idocrity of the first Atomic regs, which were only a copy of the SP MK10 being heralded as something new and high performance. B.S. Sure both manufacturers designs were great and simple, as well as high performance, but those reviews only reflected the new advertising budget being spent by Atomic to enter the market.
It should be interesting to see who caves in during this pissing match. Frankly, the testing protocol and complete disregard for any type of mention of quality, workmanship, or product backing is what makes Rodale's such an unimpressive and gimick of a magazine. They would never say if a product had good engineering, good parts, good quality materials, otherwise they'd piss off their advertisers.
Besides, Johnson purchased Sonoform which only made about 90% of the BCD's for the entire market at one time or another. It still has nothing to do with the pull from testing.
ALL the manuacturers who submit their gear for testing send in gear that has been fine-tuned. As it SHOULD be from the local dealer who sells it to the diver before they walk out the door. Just like cars, it's a dealer prep to make sure it is within specs. Even the manufacturers and Rodale's all say to have your local dealer do a prep before it goes out the door. Its just one more quality assurance check. There are no 'ringers', that would be idiotic for manufacturers to spend extra money on extra molds and manufacturing that they weren't going to sell.
SP is probably pissed at Rodale's because of all the advertising dollars that the rag receives and it's testing results biased toward whoever is keeping the most consistent advertising dollars coming in. Kind of like the idocrity of the first Atomic regs, which were only a copy of the SP MK10 being heralded as something new and high performance. B.S. Sure both manufacturers designs were great and simple, as well as high performance, but those reviews only reflected the new advertising budget being spent by Atomic to enter the market.
It should be interesting to see who caves in during this pissing match. Frankly, the testing protocol and complete disregard for any type of mention of quality, workmanship, or product backing is what makes Rodale's such an unimpressive and gimick of a magazine. They would never say if a product had good engineering, good parts, good quality materials, otherwise they'd piss off their advertisers.
