I finally took the plunge yesterday and bought the final piece of my own scuba diving gear, the regulator set. Got it from my usual local dive shop, Scuba Dynamics in Desa Sri Hartamas.
I’ve actually been looking for a regulator set for sometime now and finally they arrived to our Malaysian shores last week. Previously, most of the dive shops that I went to survey the price ran out of stock for this brand and everyone was telling me, “Come back mid January…”.
So I got myself a Mares Prestige 12S regulator, Mares Rover octopus and Mares Mission 1 gauge (I’ve got a D4 dive computer, so the pressure gauge is sufficient).
Why Mares and not others like Atomic, Sherwood, Apex, etc..?
The main reason is because of it’s Vortex Assisted Design or VAD. I’m not going to dwell into how VAD works as it’s going to take some explanation to do. Simply put, it makes breathing easier. Less work is needed to breathe in the same amount of air on other regulators. As the tagline says, As Regular & Natural As You Breathe.
I actually made up my mind on the Mares Prestige 12S regulator one month ago when I haven’t even seen it. But when I was at the dive shop, there was also the Mares Abyss 22 and Mares Proton Metal 42 on display. And this didn’t help in my decision making.
Which one should I take? I thought I’ve made up my mind, but now what happened?
The Proton Metal 42 certainly looks good. Too good in fact. The weight and size of the MR42T first stage is half of the MR12T for Prestige. That itself is very tempting. And to make things even worse, the Proton Metal 42 second stage looks real good with it’s metal finishing and smaller size.
And it costs around 80% more than the Prestige. That’s a big No-No.
Took my time and toyed around with all 3. Went home. Thought about it for the whole night and finally went for the Prestige 12S as decided earlier. It’s good enough for my style of diving and most importantly within my budget. The price difference between the Prestige 12S and Proton Metal 42 could buy me another dive computer for my wife in the future, which in my opinion is a wiser idea.
Now, I can’t wait to try out these regulators and see how natural they breathe underwater!
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