WOW.. How incredibly rude

[Goose75]

After scanning through the posts I noticed a trend that I was curious if it is true. Those that have heard that SP regs are poor tend to be the European posters. The negative US posters seem to be focused on the the company attitude.

 

[H2Andy]

I remember years ago when SP regs were considered the Rolls Royce of regs

they still are, in some circles

 

[Tom Smedley]

Whichever one gives him the best profit margin. Most dive store owners are not haughty about being SP dealers. They want to hang on the the dealership because they are so hard to get. However, US Divers and others are much higher profit margins and the shop owner will usually try to sell you one of those. I was a die-hard SP person, I own four, one of which is over 50 years old and still works fine. But - now that I have a Legend, I like that one just fine too. SP also dictates that you may not sell over the internet and that you may not discount more than 10 percent. They are not easy to deal with sometimes.

Interesting, what was his idea of good quality gear???

 

[Meteora]

I just bought gear this past weekend and I'm happy to report that both of my LDSs were teriffic about not trashing the others' gear - in fact their attitude was the exact opposite - they were very complimentary towards the competitive products I was considering, then presented some points that might make their offering more attractive to me. Excellent service, good honest advice, and liberal policies on returns/exchanges make paying the LDS premium worthwhile to me - if all I want is cheap gear, I already know where to go.

I hope that trashing the competition isn't typical - with more and more customers doing research online and coming in educated, I doubt many stores will be successful with that practice, and it'll certainly turn people off to diving.

 

[Ishie]

I was having nasty problems with an LDS, and regularly got crud over every piece of gear I owned. That and there was always the assumption that if I was buying something low end, it was because I was uninformed, but really did have a spare 600 bucks sitting in my checking account. For a while, I became exclusively an internet-equipped diver, because I got sick of arguing, and didn't actually have any trouble with that service-wise or otherwise, but missed the advice and such, so I finally found a great LDS closer to my home than the first one, actually, that actually gives competitive prices, WONDERFUL service, and they *don't* bash. Despite not selling Mares, when I first went in there with my Proton Ice, one of the people working there grabbed for it and said "Oooh! It's so little!" They give me recommendations based on my specific needs rather than just what is best, encourage research, and if I want a gear item that isn't from one of their lines, they do not "punish" me for shopping elsewhere. At the first store, yeesh, coming in with a tank from another dive shop was like being caught cheating on a lover "What's that?" "What?" "What's the label on that tank say?" "Uh... nothing... I found this tank." "You... you w****!!!!" Yeesh. What's also nice is two of my favorite people at my new LDS are fairly minimalistic diving-wise, so they like offering alternate solutions to expensive stuff.

I haven't heard too much nasty stuff about ScubaPro among CA divers? It's not my favorite gear, but it appears to last forfriggingever. My first BC was an (uncomfortable) Scubapro that was well over a decade old, and worked perfectly. Jim has a reg of theirs that he loves too.

 

[leo311]

I started diving on a SP G-200 on a MK-20, air-2. I've been in some real mud holes and the only problem I've had was a freeflow from the air-2 because it was dragging on the bottom (public safety diving). In my experience, keep it clean and serviced and you won't have a problem.