The eternal question... Neoprene or Trilam drysuit?

[Zef]

Paraphrased to cut down the size of the quoted post:

Blah blah blah seasoft is the best, we know what we are doing better than anyone else, etc, etc, etc.

You're still pandering your own press. No one expects you to say anything else but your the best. You claim your suits excel in comparison tests but don't attach or link them. It is not super relevant what a product manufacturer thinks of their own product, especially in comparison to their competition. You chimed into this thread with your self promotion back in October...you have made all sorts of claims about how great your product is and have insinuated that everything else is inferior in material and design...but I have not seen a single poster stating anything resembling agreement with your self promotion sentiment. Maybe its just me, but in your earnestness to convince the community how great your product is you have turned at least me off from considering your product at all. There were attempts earlier by a couple of folks to convey this to you but perhaps you were too self aggrandized to read between the lines. I don't doubt you make a good product but anything you have to say about your product that is not a response to a specific technical question about your specific product is just "ad copy". You may be doing your business more harm than good.

But who am I....just another diver with a fist full of cash trying to decide where to spend it and on what.

Good luck with whatever approach you decide to take moving forward.

-Z

 

[Bruce Justinen]

Zef:

You make a good point, every manufacturer believes they make the best product. I could mention that we are a super small company (5.5 employees) that has been in business 35 years.

1. Most of us dive, if we can see a way to make it better we can immediately do so.

2. WE make our suits, we have never had a suit made in China or overseas.

3. If we do screw up, we can fix it right away not make excuses or try to convince you that that show it is supposed to be.

4. We live on Puget Sound, our water is freaking cold year round. We KNOW cold water, actually it is all we know. We know what it is like to go out in the morning when it is 34 degrees F. with a cold drizzle and an 8 knot breeze, 100% humidity, with a water temperature of 46 degrees F.

You finish the dive and it is a driving rain and the breeze is now a 25 to 30 knot wind from the north blasting your wet drysuit. Yeah, we know drysuit diving and we know how to stay warm even in those conditions. Then we can drive 4 hours and go ice diving.

5. We have been at the top or won every drysuit shootout or competition we have ever been a part of. Here is a SCUBALAB competition done at the Oregon Aquarium. I am attaching the scoring sheet from that comparison test. You should be able to read this. Against all of these drysuits, SEASOFT finished FIRST and SECOND and we only entered two of our suits.

I hope this gives you a few tangible reasons to believe our hype.

Bruce
SEASOFT SCUBA

 

[stuartv]

@Bruce Justinen That graphic is too small for me to read (on my 24" monitor). Even after clicking on it to open it in a popup.

A link to the original source would be much more useful.

 

[Storker]

We know what it is like to go out in the morning when it is 34 degrees F. with a cold drizzle and an 8 knot breeze, 100% humidity, with a water temperature of 46 degrees F.

We call that "a little nippy" or "a bit on the chilly side". And most of us dive trilams with nice, thick, warm undersuits and perhaps a heated west. Plus, if we dive often during winter: drygloves. I've yet to see a neoprene suit where you can install dryglove rings. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that those things exist, but I have yet to see one of those live.

 

[stuartv]

We call that "a little nippy" or "a bit on the chilly side". And most of us dive trilams with nice, thick, warm undersuits and perhaps a heated west. Plus, if we dive often during winter: drygloves. I've yet to see a neoprene suit where you can install dryglove rings. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that those things exist, but I have yet to see one of those live.

I put Kubi rings on the Bare XCS2 (compressed neoprene) suit I used to have. It had latex seals. The rings I put on were the ones they offer that basically just clamp onto existing (latex) seals.

And yeah, a drysuit with no dry glove rings is not a suit I would own....

 

[Storker]

I put Kubi rings on the Bare XCS2 (compressed neoprene) suit I used to have.

Just to be 100% certain: Crushed or compressed? Because a crushed neo suit is yet another shell suit, albeit a little more elastic than a trilam.

 

[stuartv]

Just to be 100% certain: Crushed or compressed? Because a crushed neo suit is yet another shell suit, albeit a little more elastic than a trilam.

I have been corrected on this before. I believe it is compressed. I *think* DUI is the only company that has crushed.

Regardless, if the suit has latex seals, you can put rings on it.

 

[Storker]

I *think* DUI is the only company that has crushed.

Mares and Bare also have (had?) crushed neo suits in their line-up.

 

[stuartv]

Mares and Bare also have (had?) crushed neo suits in their line-up.

When I bought my XCS2, I was under the impression that it was crushed. I was later informed (perhaps wrongly) that it was technically not crushed but compressed. Or "hyper compressed".

I think the XCS2 and it's siblings is the closest thing Bare has to crushed neoprene. And I think it's still a bit thicker (and stretchier) than DUI's crushed neoprene. But I am not sure.

 

[scubadada]

@Bruce Justinen That graphic is too small for me to read (on my 24" monitor). Even after clicking on it to open it in a popup.

A link to the original source would be much more useful.

Hi Stuart,

It is from the 2011 ScubaLab drysuit testing, http://ads.bonniercorp.com/scuba/PDF/ScoringChart.pdf

I believe they have neoprene seals, they don't sell dry gloves