Cold Water Scuba Gear

[beeger]

I would stay away from the Poseidons. From what I've seen a few people really like these regs, a lot of people don't. Regardless almost everyone agrees that these are extremely finicky regs that require a great deal of tweaking/servicing in order to keep in top shape. Very few shops can service the Poseidons ... many technicians don't want to touch these regs. I have also heard second hand that there are all sorts of problems right now sourcing Poseidon parts. Maybe somebody could offer some insight here.

Personally, I would check into Apeks. I own a number of sets and have never had a problem in cold water. These are excellent regs from a performance standpoint. Other choices might be the Aqualung Legend or Titan/Glacia series (the later being one of the best price-to-value reg deals out there right now). Sherwood and Mares also seem somewhat popular around here and are solid cold water performers. Be careful with Scubapro ... I've seen all kinds of freeflows with these. But, as someone has already said, you can make almost any reg into a cold water reg with the proper tuning (or make a cold water reg freeflow with the first breath by improper tuning). But you want to find a reg that is designed to work optimally in these conditions.

The loss of neoprene buoyancy at depth is only an issue if you are diving a wetsuit or foam neoprene drysuit.