Christolube is a better lubricant but lubrication is not really important in that application, and unless the o-rings are bad and unless your assembly proicedure is poor, you are not neccesarily going to get silicone from the ambient chamber into the o2 clean and christolube lubricated interior of the reg. But just having silicone on the same workbench as o2 clean tools and parts means there will inevitably be cross contamination of parts and tools with the result that the "O2 clean" reg is not going to be O2 clean. That was the reason Scubapro dropped the SPEC (Silicone Protected Ambient Chamber) system on their regulators when they began moving in the direction of making their regs Nitrox compatible.
The other option was to use Christolube as a filler in the ambient chamber rather than silicone. However compared to silicone, Christolube is much more expensive and packing the ambient chamber is going to use about $20.00 worth of Christolube. So SP went with the no filler required TIS system while Atomic went the Christolube filled ambient chamber route.
But as stated previously I think SP made a mistake as the filled ambient chamber, while more expensive and much more messy to service each year, is more reliable in extremely cold water than the TIS system.
The other option was to use Christolube as a filler in the ambient chamber rather than silicone. However compared to silicone, Christolube is much more expensive and packing the ambient chamber is going to use about $20.00 worth of Christolube. So SP went with the no filler required TIS system while Atomic went the Christolube filled ambient chamber route.
But as stated previously I think SP made a mistake as the filled ambient chamber, while more expensive and much more messy to service each year, is more reliable in extremely cold water than the TIS system.
