Gear set comments

[Budric]

Hi,

I have yet another post from a newbie looking for a set of gear. I appreciate those with experience to give me some comments.

I plan to dive in Ontario during summer - Kingston, Tobamory. Eventually (2 years or more) I plan to get a dry suit and try cold water diving/ice diving. Also I plan to go to warm countries maybe once a year.

For the regulators I'm looking at several options:

• 
  Mares 12S - inexpensive, specs say balanced diaphragm first stage. I believe it won't work for ice diving out of the box, need a cold water kit? But can't find how cold it will go. Annual maintenance.

• 
  Mares Abyss 22 - is it worth the upgrade? I think the service interval is 2 years?

• 
  Overall what's the warranty period for free servicing parts on Mares?

• 
  I was also looking at Atomic Z2x. This is now getting much more expensive. Also they offer lifetime parts not contingent on service period. But, I wonder how true that is in practice. Their list of authorized dealers doesn't list any store in Canada that I'm interested in buying from (such as dansdiveshop.ca).

Any other regulators I should consider? Any regulators I should avoid - un-reliable, companies going out of business, bad support, hard to get parts in Canada, not honoring warranty, etc?

My other question is regarding a wetsuit. As I said I won't be buying a dry suit for a while. I was looking at 7 mm suits, hoods. But there are also semi-dry suits for about 100-150$ more than a regular wet suit. Is it worth it? Is there a lot more maintenance as well - like taking more care of neck seals etc?

Thanks for your comments.