Sun Nov 03, 2013 8:02 am
I look at it a different way, when you get it right the first time, there is no need to change. The only real advances in first stage design in the last 40 years or so is in the soft rubber parts like seat material and diaphragms. There are only 3 ways all scuba first stages are made, that has been true from the beginning and remains so today. You can put fluff around the design- add parts or make parts out of exotic materialand do lots of sales hype....Atomic is great for that but in the end the basic design is the same. In the end, all that does is make the reg more expensive and shorten it's life due to parts unavialabily.That is one of the reasons I just love those who think the older gear is junk and will not perform as well as the modern gear. They have no clue the internals are the same as my 50 yo reg. That said, second stages are somewhat of a different matter. There have been improvements made but once the basic balanced second stage can out, there has been little improvement since then. If anything, they have gotten worse due to cheaper and ligher materials, the design is good but material selection is poorer. The special LP hose on some of the Apeks/AL seconds is a prefect example. No way I would have one of those regs simply due to the special hoses.
Herman