OK for the sake of completeness re this thread! ....now there was a bit of a delay in getting this report to you, since my buddy had a snotty nose last weekend and we didnt get out to dive my returned regulator until this past saturday. and what a glorious day it was, sunny and warm (for this time of year) with water temps around 47F. we got down to around 80 ffw for awhile and I put the thing through its paces: fiddled with the settings in multiple permutations, exertional breathing, out of mouth, air sharing etc and the thing performed flawlessly. now it breathes the way I remember it should: smooth, effortless, dry and with no bloop bloop bloops or freeflows!
my next task is to figure out how to get reliable, competent annual service since I certainly dont trust my LDS anymore--it is clear to me he doesnt know or care much about learning how to service these regs...and to think some of the factors that led me to purchase AL reg was that I had a local LDS to service them (burn! :11: ) and that it is a common "worldwide" brand that I can get serviced for more easily if necessary when I travel! yeesh
