It may be a late revelation, but it seems to me as if the tech dive industry is moving towards a low cost breakthrough. I was searching a bit yesterday and found some threads on fora such as scubaboard about new tech dive gear. For example, EDGE-HOG, Highly Optimised Gear. It seems there is a factory somewhere in Taiwan that makes much of the techie gear and things are re-badged under different names. For example, look at this regulator from HOG.
This looks surprisinly much like an APEKS to me.
Tech Diving Limited is selling the HOG second stage plus a first stage that also looks much like an APEKS first stage together with an SPG and hoses for $249. The Wings on the HOG web site also retails for $199 about half of what looks like a standard OMS or DiveRite wing.
Does this signal the start of a price collapse for tech dive gear? If it is possible to manufacture and retail for such low prices and the gear is very similar, interesting development. It will be interesting to follow the development and see if there will be any reviews of this stuff.
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Here is the factory you're referring to:
http://tinyurl.com/ncjkhg
I don't think they make Apeks stuff, but they do make DiveRite, ScubaMax, Salvo, TDL, HOG, and a bunch of other brands of regulators.
If you can find 299 friends who need regulators then you too can order a batch with your own logo on them at a ridiculously low cost per unit.
Thanks Pat. It is all falling into place. I might establish the "1/10" line of gear, prices a tenth of normal dive shop retail gear.
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