Where can you look up gear ratings?

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If you are considering diving with double tanks, dry suit diving, technical diving or cave diving, then get a backplate and wing. But if you are sure that you will only be doing warm water, single tank, recreational diving, then get a backplate and wing!
You really need to come up with a new line as your parroting of this one in every BCD thread is really getting tiring.

How about why you think so?
 
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The problem with ScubaLab is that it's beholden to its advertisers. They've never had their hands on a piece of dive gear they didn't love, as long as it came from one of their "partners."
 
You really need to come up with a new line as your parroting of this one in every BCD thread is really getting tiring.

How about why you think so?
I cant speak for DrMike but as I agree with him, my reason is that every diver I have ever put a BP/W on (whether they are new students, certified divers coming for a refresher etc) have WITHOUT exception, gone out and bought a BP/W at the first opportunity. I would find it VERY hard to go back to a jacket BC for any reason ever, I would dive a back inflate BCD if I didn't have my gear and had to borrow / rent. But, the ones I like are basically BP/W with a soft plate so 6 of one, half dozen...

As for the advantages etc there are a brazillion threads on here about that, for me its stability of rig, balancing of weight, low cost and (relative) lack of failure points.
 
You really need to come up with a new line as your parroting of this one in every BCD thread is really getting tiring.

How about why you think so?

It's always the same question, why wouldn't it always be the same answer?
 
The problem with ScubaLab is that it's beholden to its advertisers. They've never had their hands on a piece of dive gear they didn't love, as long as it came from one of their "partners."

Also, as I understand it, Scubalab only tests samples that companies have sent them. Scubalab tests might provide some useful information, but they are definitely not to be considered the Consumer Reports of scuba.
 
This is the best independent review site you're going to find for scuba gear as a whole. If you're looking toward technical gear, throw decostop in there as well. Any site dedicated to providing gear reviews will not provide an unbiased set of reviews that are even remotely complete. They are ALL beholden to advertisers and invariably (in my experience) provide good reviews (or at least not negative) to their advertisers and usually don't review much else.

If you have a few pieces of gear you're interested in, post them here and you will get honest reviews. You will definitely get the "buy a backplate once and use it forever" response when looking at BCs but you will also get actual reviews of the specific equipment you are looking at.

As others have said, any modern reg you look at will be more than sufficient as long as you can get it serviced locally. Buy based upon your personal budget and what you like and don't like. Just don't let some salesperson tell you that one is better than another because they aren't. And don't fall into the "isn't your life worth the super expensive brand" BS because they're all equally reliable or they wouldn't be sold.
 
I guess all automobiles are equally safe or they would not be sold?

There are differences in gear, durability, long term serviceability and parts availability, ease of use, human engineering, fit and function. Sometimes you do get what you paid for or other times maybe less than you thought you were getting.

N
 
I guess all automobiles are equally safe or they would not be sold?

There are differences in gear, durability, long term serviceability and parts availability, ease of use, human engineering, fit and function. Sometimes you do get what you paid for or other times maybe less than you thought you were getting.

N
With respect to regs, this is just a bad comparison. It's not like actually comparing a Hyundai to a Mercedes... it's more like comparing a Camry to an Accord... more or less the same thing with slightly different features. Both are (historically) incredibly reliable and reasonable choices and the only real difference is personal preference. Hell, with regs, even resale value is a useless metric.

ALL modern regs are fit for use and are going to last a lifetime of normal recreational use if properly maintained. Will they all be serviceable forever? Probably not since some companies are going to go out of business and others will make designs "obsolete" in order to keep churning new products but they are all equally safe and equally reliable underwater. Moreover, designs haven't significantly changed in the last 25 years. The internals of my 1990s Scubapro are essentially identical to a Scubapro being manufactured today. For the most part that's true of any brand of reg you buy.

Should you take an unsealed reg to the arctic? No. Can you take ANY properly maintained modern reg to the tropics and expect it to work properly? Absolutely. To argue semantics of reliability with respect to internal parts is ridiculous if the unit is being maintained properly, whether that's annual service or service every three or four or five years. The internal parts really aren't that much different from reg to reg when comparing similar designs (piston or diaphragm). Often the $400 unit and the $700 unit from the same manufacturer are identical internally and functionally. One might be made of slightly lighter or "shinier" (meaning "good") material but they're the same design in many cases.
 

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