I believe you are trying to "buy American". Good for you. I didn't realize that Mares was made in Italy until it was to late. I would have bought the Zeagle Ranger. I have the Mares syncropower tech and it is an awesome bc but the Ranger is up there with it plus it is made in the USA. It doesn't sport the real cloth Ranger Tab anymore (it is plastic) but it was designed for the military so you know it is tough.

Gary
SSgt, USAF

It amazes me that people's patriotism goes so far as to pushing them into buying inferior products simply because they're stamped with "MADE IN USA." I try to avoid any goods which I don't know for a fact are top-notch products, regardless of where they're made. If a company sounds-off too much about "MADE IN USA" it sets off some alarms. If they have to push that fact, chance are it's not a very well engineered or constructed product that can stand on its own.

I gather it's a different mentality and it's why companies like Chrysler, Ford, and especially GM are still in bussiness, producing all-around the worst automobiles of the past 20 years.

So, if it matters to people... TUSA (Tabata USA) is a Japanese company and their products are made in Taiwan, Japan, etc...

APEKS (not APEX according to someone above who who preaches the DIR cult lines but doesn't know about the kit), is from the UK (their regs are confirmed to be made in-house, in the UK, check specifics on BCDs for possible outsourcing of components)

Mares, Dacor and Cressi-Sub are Italian.

It doesn't take long to find corporate web pages and figure out the origins of a company. To check individual items you may have to send an email or check the actual item.

If you want to buy the best all-around gear, for you, then you will have to broaden your choices beyond the USA. If you just want to buy all-American, then that's fairly simple, but you might end up with less than ideal pieces for your purposes.

Bruno

quote:

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Originally posted by William:
I can reccommend two great regs that are reasonably priced!

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And surprise surprise, they're both available for purchase online, here!

I don't see you selling Mares or Cressi-Sub or Poseidon or Apeks...

Good message board, even if it gets extremely low traffic. Shame about the constant plugging of only items carried in the scuba.com store. Especially when talking about stuff like the Spare-Air (another thread) when the best thing to do would be to steer everyone away from such a useless piece of junk and on to a real redundant/backup supply.

Bruno

SCUBAPRO and Atomic aquatics are american and are probably two of the best reg manufaturers out there.

Hybrid8...spoken like a true Canadian..oui?

quote:

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Originally posted by SGHOWE:
SCUBAPRO and Atomic aquatics are american and are probably two of the best reg manufaturers out there.

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But it's funny the most prominent thing you see on the sites of Atomic and Genesis (other than it looking like one makes regulators for the other) are RECALL NOTICES.

Scubapro, more than many other companies, is multinational, moreso than just for distribution. In any case, their products make a name for themselves based upon their quality and not because the company makes a practise of trumpeting MADE IN USA.

But up there at the top, in the cream of the crop space is also Mares, Apeks and Poseidon, let's not forget that. And all else being equal, if I was going to go into something blind, I would choose either of those three over aything from this continent, if only for where they are made.

Bruno

quote:

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Originally posted by Mike:
Hybrid8...spoken like a true Canadian..oui?

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What are you talking about, eh?

Bruno

I agree wholeheartedly with the sergent. I wonder if too many folks...including the Canadian..<I haven't figured out how to put a happy face up>...could tell the difference between regs blindfolded. They are all, as far as I know, designed to fail positively, that is you should still be able to breath if the thing breaks.
Hybrid, I am an expat Canadian. Let me know if you wanna come down to Florida to do some diving...but the power of the U.S. economy wasn't created by people buying Taiwanese.

I never said anything about any company being good simply because they are american, personally I could care less. As far as Poseidon goes there are far better regulators being made now. The apeks regs are very nice in my opinion. I have dove both and can however say that the atomic and higher end Scubapro breathe quite noticably easier than either of them, especially the poseidon. Apeks however is probably third in line for me as far as regs go, which isn't too bad by any strech of the imagination.