- Yeah but... It's Phil Nuytten and the way he's wording it sounds like he's saying its balanced. So, I got myself doubting what I know. I think now that I just misunderstood him... There were a lot of Gagnan's innovations mentioned in that one paragraph and versions of which found their way into several of his other regulator designs. Diagrams in Basic Scuba illustrate two dramatic design differences of the VCR2 from all other regs:
1. The NOZZLE of the VCR2 is empty... No seat, no spring... Nothing like the stuff that's in the nozzles of the Mistral, DAAM, and RAM. The balanced RAM has its balancing machinery in the nozzle so how could the VCR2 share the same feature?
2. The Downstream valve mechanism of the VCR2 is HIGH PRESSURE and comes AFTER the nozzle... A unique push/pull mechanism. The high pressure single stage version of this
must be what Phil Nuytten referred to as the only design US Divers never used but licensed to Voit. LATER, U.S. Divers used the same approach in the LOW PRESSURE 2nd stage of single hose regulators.
FYI - Phil lists "Bryan Pennington" among a very distinguished list of people in the credits for the article. Not too shabby...
This drawing is from an article in the archives of the Vintage Double Hose website.