Top 5 Scuba Regulators for 2020 | Safe Diving

I see if divers and welcome to safe diving so you guys seem to enjoy my video on my top 5 dive computers and that's up there by the way so I thought that I'd do the same for regulators so I have had the privilege to have played with pretty much all regulators that are on the market right now and while all regulators on the market do have to pass the test before they can actually go into production and be sold some regulators laugh at this pitiable test and jump so high over this bar that they can't even see it anymore one of these regulators in fact and that I'm gonna list a little bit later spent two years lost at sea on the bottom of the ocean and still passed the test which has made for brand new regulators so anyone can draw a top-five list of regulators is easy all you need to do is head over to any web site that sells regulators and just change the little sort to to price high to low Bob's your uncle at the top of your list you have the five best regulators available well actually what you really have is the most expensive for regulators available not necessarily the best to be honest and whilst yes they will have some great materials and performance as well you don't have to spend premium prices to get a decent regulator there are some great regulators out there that aren't at the top of regulator manufacturers ranges and as Goldilocks found out sometimes the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle so let's take a look at five of my favorite scuba diving regulators on the market right now [Music] [Music] [Music] atomic aquatics are much like the Ferrari or the Lamborghini of scuba diving regulators whilst expensive they are precision manufactured machines and they are very very swish and as with most expensive spoke pair sports cars it's all about the little unseen features that kind of make it really great like the automatic venturi control on the t3 second stage almost regulators you'll have a little switch for you to manually redirect air flow to prevent a free flow but that wasn't enough for atomic so they designed a fin that sits on the inside on a flexible swivel that reacts to air flow that way you still get a regulator that interrupts a free flow before it becomes a problem but you keep the good air flow to reduce your work of breathing the little things start adding up and talking about things adding up the T in the t3 s name stands for titanium in fact all of the letters in Atomics regulators name stands for the metals they're made from but titanium is a premium material to make regulators from which is both very very strong and also very light as well so if we're traveling divers it's an amazing material for your regulators there is the caveat though titanium is rubbish in really cold water and it can get a tad excited with high oxygen mixes so if you're doing some really advanced stuff in the cold or with more than 40% oxygen in your tank then I'd probably look at something else but if you do want a premium regulator with a fantastic finish and great breathe for recreational diving then you can do a lot worse than the t3 [Music] scubapro makes some great regulators and whilst that a700 is these shining diamonds at the top of their range and the G 360 has a special place in my heart because I just love the kind of industrial vintage style of it the s 620 or to do its full name that s 622 I is the Frankenstein's monster of a regulator only instead of taking bits of dead bodies and stitching them together skewer hand selected the best features of their entire regulator range and molded them together into a finely tuned machine the Essex 20 has a smart compact little buddy and the looks to go with it inside the titanium barrel reduces a little bit of the way to reduce drawer fatigue and also to eliminate any corrosion on the inside it also tends to be paired with the mark 25 which is a great first age it's a 5 quart swivel turret which allows for all sorts of setups and its kind on your hoses too because they don't get bent at the ear the kind of a fool as much as with just a normal port inside the first a Spooner went in kind of an odd direction by not environmentally sealing it in a traditional way they coated the exposed parts in a Teflon like coating so this treatment helps prevent ice from forming up and clogging up the moving parts inside there are some submarines that are actually using the mark 25 to regulate the internal pressure so if there are submarines that are using this first stage then I'd be pretty happy using it to [Music] objectively the xl4 plus is probably the ideal regulator for almost any scuba diver the second stage is tiny and lightweight for traveling but the like second stage also helps to reduce the drawer fatigue because you don't have the weight of a big clunky second stage that you have to bite down in your mouth the first stage is cold water rate is is basically a modified ds4 and the reason why the plus is on the list instead of the regular xl4 is that first stage the first stage on the regular version only has a single high-pressure port the plus has two so this just kind of eases my need for balance on things and I get that on most setups you only really use one high pressure port so the second is just another failure points to go wrong but I like that you can mount it either way so it's nice and neat and you can have just mirror in first stages the second stage is a smart level thing with a nice purge button on the front of it and not too many twiddly bits neither the white and grey doesn't really put me off when I first saw it I was kind of surprised they went from white but it has grown on me I mean black is a very standard color while scuba diving and most of my gear is already black so it would be nice to see something a little bit different and whilst yes the xl4 was made to be a stage regulator and it's inspired by the light travel regulator the flight it has a standard sized thread so you can actually attach any person length hose that you like [Music] [Music] so this is the second regulator from apex on this list and again I promise this video isn't sponsored by anybody but if you've seen my own gear videos up here then you'll know that I dived the X DX 50 regulator with the DST first stage the xx 50 with a 5 port DST is one of the most flexible regulator designs so it can be configured to any style of diving the second stage itself is ambidextrous if you need to route your hose in from the left hand side for whatever reason you can do that and you can even change the exhaust T if you want something a little bit smaller but also the plastic of the second stage has antibacterial properties put into it to help prevent some nasties from growing inside of your second stage but the main reason why I went for the 50 instead of the 100 or even the 200 is in the first stage the FS are and the XX 200 was it may perform better than the DST and is available in a 5 quart configuration - my heart is always gonna go towards a swivel turret for flexibility but there's the Intex are in the MPX i'll see i hear you ask and whilst yes the MTX RC is a great regulator the RC is basically and xx 50 on steroids I don't really need that much cold water performance in my regulator are not heading back to the arctic circle anytime soon and the second stage is pretty big in your mouth sorts of bitter I won't [Music] right before this stay at home all fell upon us : were actually lining up to release a new generation of the legend regulator which for some reason has always been overlooked by many divers it's great the new generation of legend regulators this time spoke with a three I actually had the honour of seeing at the factory and they're pretty smart of the three options I chose the NBS instead of the elite not just because my favorite color is blue but they're actually very similar and the NBS does kind of the same thing just in a slightly different way and the S stands will master breathing system that you have to say quite carefully on video but whilst the elite has separate venturi leaver and breathing adjustment the NBS actually brings them together into one thing so you only have one twiddly bit to look after that way when it's out of your mouth just dial it all the way in and the regulator is primed to rent a free-flow dial it all the way out for premium air flow and breathing performance the first stage is a bit of a beast but for cold water diving is exactly what you want small first stages are great in all to reduce weight for traveling but for actual performance especially in cold water you want something big and these are the kind of heatsink fins that you actually want on your regulator to keep the first-stage from freezing over you want something nice and big what I prefer if it were a 5-4 swivel turret sure but for most regulator setups this is actually great now if I were to build my own personal regulator I probably take the the bypass tube and the metal body from the Mars of this regulator that was a lovely regulator and then I'll make that into some kind of side exhaust second-stage a bit more like the Poseidon cyclone without any twiddly bits and moving parts you don't need those titanium would be cool but for cold one performance I probably stick to nor in great grass or even steel the first stage as you've probably guessed by now will be a 5 ports with all turrets but it would be a hybrid between kind of school reproach mark 25 and apex is DST I prefer the full-on environmental seal so that nothing can get into the working parts a lot like the DST only the DST doesn't allow hoes to fully rotate around the axis because the hoes can get stuck on the a clamp or the din wheel but what would your ideal and regulator feature do you like having the control of airflow and swiveling totes or do you just prefer something a little bit different do you like a side exhaust second-stage well have you even tried one I think at the moment the only brands that still make them are Poseidon and Hollis anyway let's discuss regulators down below okay so thank you very much for watching this video on my channel I upload videos on Wednesdays Fridays and Sundays all about how to be a better scuba diver now I've been working in and around the diving industry for quite a long time now and I have a lot of advice that I can help you out with so if you need any help or advice with your diving just let me know in the comments below and subscribe to my channel and I'll probably make a video about it to help you out so if you want to you can click here to check out one of my latest videos on how to upgrade your equipment and your diving as well and then click here to check one of my scuba diving advice videos thank you for watching and of course safe diving [Music] [Music]

Channel: Safe Diving

Views: 12,000

Rating: 4.9589043 out of 5

Keywords: scuba, diving, equipment, gear, regulator, top, list, best

Id: lLPMjypLBQU

Length: 12min 0sec (720 seconds)

Published: Sat May 30 2020