John Bantin has been a full-time professional diving writer and underwater photographer since 1990. He makes around 300 dives each year testing diving equipment.

MP3 PLAYER
Oceanic H2O Audio
Rebreather divers, are you tired of silent diving? Trimix divers, are you bored with doing long stops? Groovy divers, do you find the rhythm of the reef just too repetitive and crave something less subtle? You need the H2O Audio MP3 player! It's designed to work under water, and is rated to 66m.
     Now there would seem little point in reviewing a normal MP3 player - this is not a hi-fi magazine. But to my knowledge this is the only model that will be suitable for use by divers.
     Suffice to say that you download 128Mb of music via your PC or Mac (64Mb to 512Mb versions available), then you navigate through the menu of the LCD to play the tracks of your choice.
     The only thing that those familiar with MP3 players need to know is that the underwater headphones are powered by a separate 9V battery and operated by an additional on/off switch. The indicator light for this is unmistakably bright.
     You can also press the menu button and then navigate your way around using left-right and up-down buttons. You need to learn the idiosyncrasies of short and long pushes to get the full benefits of all the options.
     Learn to use the MP3 player before you take it under water. It is also an FM receiver but that does not apply to this application unless you have an aerial on your SMB and a very long wire!
     The earpieces or headphones fit to your mask strap and the music is heard extremely clearly, though it has a lot more treble than is nice if you use them in air. That's clearly because the treble gets filtered a little by vibrations through water.
     The MP3 player and its speaker amplifier module fit into a handy Plexiglas housing which shuts onto a big gasket and is held shut by a secure cam-catch that locks in place. The through-housing controls allow access to most of the controls of the MP3 player, but basically you will want to be able to select a track, play it and control the volume. The volume control is pushed to get incremental adjustments. Otherwise there are too many options that make it challenging for a diver at depth.
     The unit can be clipped to a BC D-ring or hidden away in a BC pocket, although I recommend clipping it to an internal D-ring in the latter case.
     So what's it like to use under water? Well, first the music you download is very important. It should be both to your taste and conducive to good diving. I was limited to the selection that had been downloaded by the diver who got his hands on the unit before me.
     I found that, whether it was Jimi Hendrix, Blur or Blondie, the music was quite distracting for someone hunting good shots with a camera and gas-switching during the dive. It simply added enormously to the task-loading. It was better suited to motorway-driving, the type of music that helps you lose your licence.
     Bopping along at less than 9m, rather than simply bobbing along as I would normally do, gently off-gassing, I found myself getting so into the music that I stopped looking at what I had come to see. So for me it was not a great success.
     Music for me is something to enjoy between dives rather than during one, though I admit that this innovation would be perfect when making long hangs on a deco-bar.
     Grant Searancke, one of the dive-guides from my. Hurricane, used it while diving with his rebreather. He too found it very distracting. Later, he told me that he became paranoid about his handset displays and kept checking them every 30 seconds, because he was sure he would never hear a warning buzzer. On the other hand, I had trouble getting Simon, the videographer from my. Sea Serpent, to hand the player back after diving with it. He loved the experience. I guess it's down to personality.
     I know it has an on/off switch but the temptation is to listen and lose your way. I got round this by fitting the headphones to a separate mask. When I wanted to listen I had to change masks, and that made it less tempting to use at depth.
     It made me disciplined enough to make the change only when distractions were needed, rather than simply dangerous.
     The final verdict? Anyone who is gadget-mad will want one. Initially, that seems to include everyone.
     Not everyone who tried out the device thought it was such a good idea after they had used it and I'm not sure that everyone is qualified by personality to use one. I wouldn't want to see anyone's body recovered with music still blasting in deaf ears.
     Be aware that another diver sporting headphones and a vacant gaze may not be too aware of what he is doing, let alone aware of any problem you might be having.
The 128Mb Oceanic H2O Audio MP3 player tested costs £315, the 64Mb version £295.

Underwater MP3 07795 510297, www.underwatermp3.co.uk

+ Great sounds under water

- Why would you want that?

REGULATOR
Dacor Eagle Pro DPD
Everyone wants the truth, or at least the truth as they want it to be. Makers of diving equipment want me to say how wonderful all their kit is, but if I say an entry-level item is wonderful, why would they think they could still sell top-dollar items?
     I recently went away with three different-brand regulators. One was a horrible performer and I await the lawyer's letter. One was sublime and that's one manufacturer who will not shout at me at the US DEMA diving trade show this year.
     The third was one I had tried before, and the British distributor had asked me to take another look. Why? Because the first example I tested more than a year ago was horrible too, and I told you about my experiences with it.
     It was apparently a rogue specimen, made the Friday after Italy were knocked out of the World Cup. Hydrotech tells me that it never managed to sell a single one of that first consignment, but that recent batches are a different kettle of fish.
     The Dacor Eagle Pro DPD is made in the same HTM factory as Mares products. I'm told that the company has upped sticks from Italy and moved to the Czech Republic, but wherever it's based, its marketeers think the Dacor brand has a better profile than Mares in the USA.
     However, the Eagle Pro is not just Mares with a different name. It has a diaphragm-style first stage unique to Dacor, in that the primary second-stage hose is connected via a swivel. This lets you route the hose almost any way you like, though the O-ring at the swivel must surely be a weak point in time to come.
     There are three other medium-pressure and two hp ports well spaced around the regulator barrel. The all-plastic second stage uses the patent Mares VAD Bi-pass tube design, which effectively avoids exponential free-flows at the surface.
     Even so, the Eagle also has a dive/predive switch. Why? It probably has more to do with acceptability in the US marketplace than necessity. I ignored it. It's quite hard to operate with a gloved hand anyway.
     The second stage, also unique to the Dacor brand, is mostly plastic and almost weightless in water. It looks compact, but has a deep internal funnel that takes up space. It sends the air spiralling into your mouth in quite a concentrated squirt.
     The internal surface of this funnel is shiny thermoplastics, which I assume stops ice forming. Hydrotech tells me that the Eagle Pro has been successfully CE cold-water tested. It certainly has a Teflon-coated demand lever that sheds ice effectively. There don't seem to be any other concessions to cold freshwater diving and, like all plastic second stages, it does feel a little cheap.
     Overall this product gives plenty or air but I cannot tell you that delivery was as sublime as that of the doubly expensive regulator I used alongside it. It's what you would expect of a mid-range product. I dived it to 50m with no problem and it seems a good option for those on a limited budget.
     It certainly laid to rest the ghost of that 2002 Eagle. It's a competent performer and I'm pleased to be able to say that this Eagle is no dead duck!
The Dacor Eagle Pro DPD costs £234.

Hydrotech 01455 275030, www.hydrotech.co.uk

+ Good mid-price performer + Easy hose routeing

- Not as compact as it first appears

COMPUTER
Apeks Quantum
I went diving in the Red Sea. So what? you say. I dived with two standard 12 litre tanks twinned as independents, as a lot of people choose to do nowadays. I used air in one tank and nitrox 36 in the other.
     Why? Because I could dive to 50m on the air but, once I got back within its operating depth range (say 30m), I swapped over to the nitrox 36 to speed my decompression.
     How did I monitor that? I used a new Apeks Quantum two-mix dive computer.
     Suddenly deep dives over the lower tongues of the reefs at the Brothers, Daedelus and the Elphinstone were not so challenging, and once I had sucked the nitrox 36 down to 30 bar I could always swap back to the air (nitrox 21) and toggle back to it on the Quantum to extend my dive time further.
     That came in useful when the oceanic whitetip shark turned up in the shallows just as I was about to climb back on board the liveaboard. Thank goodness I still had a couple of frames of film left in my camera. The Quantum tracked my decompression status all the way.
     It has a particularly clear-to-read, self-illuminating display, very much in line with the Cressi Archimede which, I bet, comes from the same factory somewhere in Japan. It has time, dive, dive-planning, logbook, dive-profile, PC-download and time-setting modes. These are easily understood and set with the aid of three buttons: one for mode, one for detail and one for adjustment. You can switch between imperial and metric measurements.
     In dive mode you can set up to two nitrox mixes, and any that are not set to air revert to worst-case-scenario (99% O2, 79% N) at midnight each night. This means that you must set your computer for the nitrox mix you use each day at least. You should be doing this anyway immediately before each dive after analysing the gas in your tank. Or you can of course leave the computer set permanently to Air.
     You can only use a set ppO2 of 1.4 on mix No 1 and 1.6 bar on mix No 2. The Quantum will not allow you to switch to a richer mix setting if you are beyond the maximum operating depth at 1.6 bar ppO2 for that particular mix.
     You can also choose to set it with one of three personal safety factors and dive profiling taking waypoints every 15 or 30 seconds, and calibrate it for either sea or fresh water.
     So what of its algorithm, that all-important mathematical calculation that tries to second-guess how much nitrogen you have actually absorbed? I'm told it's a 12-tissue model Swiss algorithm modified by Randy Bohrer. All I can tell you is that it sat alongside a well-thought-of Suunto Vytec on my wrist for a week's diving, with both set at the minimum personal safety-factor, and the remaining no-stop time and stops demanded by the Apeks Quantum seemed to be almost exactly in step with the Suunto's.
     The Quantum has a particularly easy-to-understand ascent-rate indicator which ties into an ascent-rate variable between 16, 12 and 8m/min. It has the usual oxygen-limiting-fraction display, which I rarely saw get far from the starting blocks. Other audible warnings are supplemented by a flashing display if you exceed any of the parameters of diving thought to be safe limits.
     You can also use the instrument as a straight depth-gauge and timer (with electronic recording) in Gauge mode.
     In line with most computers now, this Apeks model includes a voluntary safety stop between 6 and 3m. In this case the countdown is in minutes and seconds, which enables you to see how quickly the time actually passes. And the strap is long enough for use with a drysuit.
I'm not sure that the computer interface and software is available yet, but at only £249 the Apeks Quantum is remarkably inexpensive for a mix-switching nitrox computer, and it uses a common user-replaceable 3V lithium coin-cell battery too. As so often, the Japanese have come up with a winner.

Apeks Marine Equipment 01254 692200, www.apeks.co.uk

+ Easy-to-read display +Option to switch nitrox mixes during the dive

- None

BAG
IQ Smart Adventure
"Not another bag to test!" I thought, and I bet you're thinking the same.
     Well most dive bags are made in China now, and it seems that a billion Chinese people have sewing machines at home and all seem intent on knocking out examples. So there are a lot on the market and they have never been better value.
     The question is, have they ever been better quality? The problem for me is that I need to try each one to find out about them, and the ones that fall apart on the first trip usually don't make it to these pages.
     The 80 x 38 x 38cm Smart Adventure Bag from IQ Company has a capacity of 130 litres and some useful features that make it worthy of mention. It also has a slight design flaw.
     It may be capacious but it's slim enough to slide past the check-in staff on the belt, so no trips to the oversize baggage belt later. It has two rigid sides which allow it both to be wheeled with its extending handle and laid flat on its back on a couple of sled runners.
     The bag splits into two sections which are closed together with a single lockable zip, speeding things up at airport security checks. However, the zip does not take the strain during handling. This is taken up by two built-in 3cm webbing straps that run the whole way round the bag and are closed by two large pinch-clips. Just to give you an idea, my wife packed 32kg of clothes into the bag for one journey to the Med and it arrived after a return trip with no part of it damaged.
     The two halves are lined with a waterproof material and there are typical suitcase straps to stop loose contents sliding about within. That's no problem for me. My bags are always filled to overflowing. One section is closed with a zip-in rubberised panel, whereas the other has a zip-in net panel. Once loaded, the two halves are zipped up, closed together and the outer zip closed and padlocked too.
     So what's the flaw? Well, I'm not sure if it's just a capricious idea or whether it has a genuine design function, but the outer zip does not take a simple symmetrical route. Instead, it cuts across to form two opposing boot-shaped sections.
     I suppose this enables the manufacturer to use a single piece of rigid material in an L-shape for both bottoms, whether the case is lying on its back or standing on its wheels. I'm sure this makes it stronger but it also makes it quite difficult to pack.
     Apart from that, in addition to my wife's experience, I used it for a dive trip to Egypt and I suggest that it will survive quite a few more journeys yet.
Available in black or navy, the IQ Smart Adventure Bag costs around £90.

IQ, www.iq-company.com

+ Big and strong + Good-value price

- Slightly difficult to pack

Torches
as
Teklite 400LS and Flik.lite LS:3 Dive LED
HIGH-OUTPUT WHITE LEDS have allowed a minor revolution in torches during the past few years. LEDs consume so little power that some burntimes have been extended into days rather than hours. The only problem has been that they were not quite as bright as we had been promised, so manufacturers upped the brightness by clustering a number together.
     That made for a beacon of light that everyone could see, but the inability to position such a cluster at the point-of-focus of a parabolic reflector meant that few of these LED-equipped lamps could throw a very effective beam. The result was always a lamp that was ineffective once you got it under water. Good torches rely on an efficiently designed reflector to focus the light.
     LED designers were obviously aware of this, so they went away and solved the problem. New lamps are emerging that have a single LED which at first glance looks like any conventional tungsten bulb. It's called the Star LED and will last, it is claimed, for no fewer than 50,000 hours.
     The plastic-bodied Tektite 400LS looks very much like a diving lamp that has been around for years. In fact it looks like the Princeton Tec 400, which in our comparison tests of nearly five years ago was reported as giving excellent brightness.
     The Tec 400 had a 5cm diameter transparent front plastic shroud that allowed you to check for minor leaks without taking it apart, and an easily operated on/off switch but with no safety catch. A spare conventional bulb was clipped under the shroud. It had a claimed burntime of 4-5 hours from four alkaline C-cells.
     The Tektite 400LS is one of the first BC pocket-sized lanterns to use the super-bright Luxeon Star LED as a light source.
     As such, the same four C-cells will deliver more than eight hours of solar-quality light (5500°K), which is much bluer than your average 3200°K underwater torch and has suitably water-penetrating quality. Double O-rings mean that it can be depth-rated to 100m.
     I didn't try it that deep, but I did use it as my primary diving light during a night dive without any worries, though the manufacturer suggests you keep it as a back-up lamp. It seemed more than adequately bright. Its 80 lumens output can be seen (on land) as far as the horizon, so those drifting around the Brothers in the Red Sea after dark might find it comes in handy.
     The LS:3 Dive LED diver's torch uses the same Luxeon Star LED as a light source and is equally bright, but it's made by Stratford-upon-Avon-based Special EFX. The difference is that it uses modern battery technology by running on two CR1234A lithium cells, is machined from solid aluminium which makes it almost indestructible (says its manufacturer), and has a coating of tactile material claimed to make it resistant to the effects of most chemicals, let alone sea water. It is rated to 100m.
     The LS:3 Dive is also incredibly compact, weighing only 195g and measuring a mere 150mm long. You can fit a lanyard and stow it away easily in any BC pocket. It's one of those things you just want to own.
     It's also known as a Flik.lite, because it has no external switch to spoil its line. You turn it on with a flick on the wrist and turn it off by tapping its base on something hard. Obviously a magnetic switch is tucked away somewhere inside.
     This flicking motion was easy on land but under water it took me quite a few goes to get the knack. Similarly, I could switch it off on land by tapping it firmly in the palm of my other hand, but the "damping" effect of a water environment found me looking for a harder surface and I resorted to tapping it on my tank. Thankfully the light went out, and other divers didn't know who they thought was trying to attract their attention!
     The Flik.lite LS:3 Dive light was spoiled only in that we couldn't get the first one sent to us to work. Thanks to Enjay Marine of Christchurch for supplying a replacement. We never knew if it was a problem with the battery or its claimed indestructibility.
The Flik.lite LS:3 costs around £80 with two batteries and a lanyard. Replacement batteries cost around £4 a pair. The Tektite 400LS comes with a lock-off switch, lanyard and a lifetime warranty. Expect to pay around £65, including import duties.

REGULATOR
Mares MR12 Proton Metal
NOT SO LONG AGO in these pages I gave you my impressions after using the Mares Axis Pro. I liked what it did but felt it looked as cheap as it was.
     The Mares MR12 first stage is a good diaphragm-type design. If only the ports were not arranged around its rather straight barrel, which inevitably means that some hose routes will be less than happy. Meanwhile, the Axis Pro's all-plastic second stage did not look as if it would provide much longevity with hard use, and it certainly offered nothing for a diver entering cold fresh water.
     The Mares Proton Metal, teamed up with the same MR12 first stage with Mares patented DFC (Dynamic Flow Control), answers those criticisms - at a price - and I'd guess it aims to be the mainstay of Mares regulator sales in 2005.
     The Proton second stage is available in several guises, from lightweight plastics through to a full-blown Ice version. The all-metal Proton Metal simply takes us back to where we started with the heat-sink qualities of second stages of the '80s, when all were made of metal and free-flows due to icing in freshwater lakes were unheard of.
     With a front diameter measuring a little over 5cm across, this is a compact unit by any standards. It still has all the benefits of the Mares Bi-pass tube, so it stays correctly adjusted and no knobs or sliders are needed. It has a good broad exhaust-T that disperses exhaled air well, and the heat-sink area is increased by some finned sections. It's a workmanlike job that could become a favourite with schools.
     Strangely, it took to playing a tune to me when I reached 50 bar of tank pressure, but that soon passed and I experimented by breathing down to 20 bar to see how it performed. It did well.
     Don't confuse its performance with that of a top-of-the-range Mares regulator. It's not that good. But I was happy to breathe its air while working hard in currents, carrying a bulky analogue camera and lights down at 50m.
     It was spoiled for me only by the awful floppy Mares mouthpiece, which allowed the regulator to be ripped from my mouth each time I turned my head well to the left. If I owned it, I would fit a mouthpiece of my own choosing.
The Mares Proton Metal MR12 costs £287.

Blandford Sub-Aqua 01923 801572, www. blandfordsubaqua.co.uk

+ Good heatsink qualities for cold freshwater diving

- Not cheap

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