Tusa RS-130 or Aeris A1 Regulator?

[eric4435]

Hey, I have a question. I was confronted with buying the Aeris A1 regulator vs the Tusa RS-130. They both seem like good quality regulators exept that the Tusa has a little dial to adjust the breathing resistance. I figured that the Aeris one would last longer because it didn't have this little dial thingy. Since I live in the Dominican Republic (no Tusa representatives here) I sprung for the Aeris one. Now I'm wondering if that dial was actually a potential weakness in the reg or if the chances of it malfuncioning are negligable. Have any of you had a regulator with a malfunctioning resistance-dial thing?

[ScubaToys Larry]

Adjustments are not really too much of a problem. Most all of the more expensive regs have them, and I don't think I've ever seen a failure at that point.

The idea of the adjustment, is if you are swimming into a current for example, the added water pressure on the reg could cause it to free flow while you are breathing on it. So then you could "tune it down" if you had an adjustment.

The other difference between the two regs you listed is the A1 is a non balanced piston and the Tusa is a Balanced piston. The difference being a non-balanced regulator will get harder to inhale when the tank pressure drops low... Some say that is actually a good thing as it gives you a warning if they forget to look at their gauge. Non balanced regs are used a lot for stage bottles since they are indestructible and dependable.

I would not have been afraid of the adjustment, and the Tusa is a great reg - we sell a ton of them - lifetime warranty - very nice - but we also sell a lot of A1's, and either should give you years of trouble free diving.

[Judestudio]

Regardless of brands, the breathing resistance control is a nice feature, it gives the diver some flexibility in the control of air flowing through the reg by tuning it up or down. I'd definitely get one at least on my primary reg, it'll be a luxury to have one on the octo too (I guess when it comes to OOA, it doesn't matter so much if I'm breathing the "right" amount of air, just as long as there's air would be nice).

[przeor]

Never had any issues with a resistance type knob- our Zeagles actually have two controls, one is a predive switch and the typical resistance knob. Never any issues from those or any on our singles set ups. I wouldn't worry about that as a failure point. I like having the feature, it's just a little perk that comes in handy sometimes like larry mentioned above.