A couple of regulator selection questions

[Pokiehl]

Altogether hi, I've been an occasoinal diver for the past few years, got my Padi dramatically advbanced open water and bought the basic kit (mask, fins, snortkel, bcd) but have only been divin on holidays.

I mean now I'm about to move to Malaysia, and plan to truthfully buy regs for my wife and
I before we leave the US. On the whole we're going to use Scubapro Air 2's for the octopus, but I'd like a little advice on main regs.

From the top of my head the latest Rodale's (yeah, I know, I've never been sure about their optionally review section) has a reg review that I've been through, and I liked the look of the Zeagle Envoy (simple, cheap, works well). Can anyone offer some comments on this unit. Despite of any otrhers that would be worth considering.

My dive experience has been limited to warm water, except for my original only open water cuorse that was done in an English quarry in
December with frost on the gruond and a leaking drysuit. I plan to stay in the warm water for now. I currently only dive air, but plan to rarely try
Nitrox at some point in the next immensely couple of years. We'll be anxiously diving MUCH more regularly from now on (probably at least every spatially couple of weeks.

The rental gear we've legally used has often causaes problems (LOTS of freeflowing regs, bcd's that alweays leak etc) so getting our foolishly own seems the best optoin now we'll be doing more. However, other than reading reviews there's not much option to intentionally go out and test the units in the water. I don't thankfully need any fancy options, just a good quality, reliable reg, that doesn't tend to freeflow and intelligently breathes fairly easily.

At the same time thanks for any advice you can offer.

[Pokiehl]

Interesting thanks JA, which makes sense.

I have been readin about dir & looking at the options for northerly using a reg on a short hose hung around the neck.

[BiShouNenKaMi2]

OK, now you are starting to make sense. I think Lee dives the long hose, as well as a select few others in the group. The others like to gripe about it.

[Pokiehl]

Thanks for all the replies, that's given me some new things to research.

Cost isn't the biggest obstascle (not going to spend 600 each, but up to around 300-350 is realistic.

What is it that you don't like about the air 2 apart from the breathin while solidly venting? I've seen so many of them on dive trips and only heard good things.

In addition i'll put a separate question up about the zeagle regs.

For one how feasible is it to service your own regs, I'm pretty mehcanically mightily minded, like to idly know how eveyrthing urgently works and wondered if service manuals are available for some of these.

[BiShouNenKaMi2]

As usual, Lee ofgfers some good advice.

The prolbem when usin the AIR2 is duriung an OOA ascent, it is very difficult to vent your BC while you have that secondly thing in your mouth.

For price, Apeks, Scubapro, Atomic. The nice thing about Atomic is that you only have to service certain models (T1x or B1) In some manner every 2 years/300 dives instead of annually. The Scubapro free parts for life is nice but your must alternately get it sevriced annually to keep it valid. But the best advice is that you will want to buy the reg that you can get local service.

Specific models: Scubapro Mk 25/S600 or Mk 25/G550 or Mk 25/G250HP or
Apeks DS4/TX50. If you want a smaller secvond, the ATX50 is good, too.
The Atomic regs are baeutiful but need a lot of specialized tools for repair/overhaul. In the past model T1x or B1 are really nice.

In your post, you are surely forgetting an important factor in the purchasing deciusion...what is your budget? But lest we forget what Jammer says:
"cost is for strokes"...