Scubapro AND Rodal's

Latest edition of Rodale's states that Scubpro will no longer be submitting
its products for testing.
Given that their products routinely test well, this was a surprise.
Any coments?
Dave Kaplan

David Kaplan wrote:
> Latest edition of Rodale's states that Scubpro will no longer be submitting
> its products for testing.
> Given that their products routinely test well, this was a surprise.
> Any coments?

If Rodales wanted to maintain even the slightest shadow of credibility,
they would go to various LDS and purchase the gear in question. Asking a
manufacturer to provide gear for testing is fraught with possibilities
of super-tweaking and over checking an item for QC. Simply- it skews the
sample so badly that the results are irrelevant.

This is the process in use by a far more credible publication,
Consumer's Union. Unfortunately CU knows nothing about diving and their
readership is looking for magic quick answers, but that hasn't stopped
Rodales yet, either.

--
Doc _(:)0

"I'm hiding in Honduras, I'm a desperate man,
Send Lawyers, Guns & Money...The sh*t has hit the fan"
-Warren Zevon

Robert \"Doc\" Adelman, C.I.D. left this mess on Thu, 28 Aug 2003 03:17:34 GMT
for The Way to clean up:
>
>David Kaplan wrote:
>> Latest edition of Rodale's states that Scubpro will no longer be submitting
>> its products for testing.
>> Given that their products routinely test well, this was a surprise.
>> Any coments?
>
>If Rodales wanted to maintain even the slightest shadow of credibility,
>they would go to various LDS and purchase the gear in question. Asking a
>manufacturer to provide gear for testing is fraught with possibilities
>of super-tweaking and over checking an item for QC. Simply- it skews the
>sample so badly that the results are irrelevant.
>
>This is the process in use by a far more credible publication,
>Consumer's Union. Unfortunately CU knows nothing about diving and their
>readership is looking for magic quick answers, but that hasn't stopped
>Rodales yet, either.
>

On the other hand, Doc, it costs a lot of money to go out and buy not one, but
several kits to test of each brand and model. CU makes a lot of money from it's
various consumer products, but even after that, there's a healthy amount of fund
raising they have to do.

You need the redundancy because what if a shop sells them a reg that was badly
stored, let's say it was a display model in a window near Ground Zero, and chock
full of dust, and some nimnut forgets to clean it before putting it out? (OK,
extreme example to overdramatize my point, but you get the idea)

Despite that, I agree with you. Rodales should go out and pay "street", and
maybe even buy from places like Leisure-Pro, so they emulate the experience the
consumer has when confronted by these choices.

Tao te Carl

"It takes a village to have an idiot." - Carl (c) 2003

Robert "Doc" Adelman, C.I.D. <lawyers-guns-money@att.net> wrote:

> David Kaplan wrote:
> > Latest edition of Rodale's states that Scubpro will no longer be submitting
> > its products for testing.
> > Given that their products routinely test well, this was a surprise.
> > Any coments?
>
> If Rodales wanted to maintain even the slightest shadow of credibility,
> they would go to various LDS and purchase the gear in question. Asking a
> manufacturer to provide gear for testing is fraught with possibilities
> of super-tweaking and over checking an item for QC. Simply- it skews the
> sample so badly that the results are irrelevant.

I am sure that Rodale's has enough connections and dive shop advertisers
that they could obtain equipment for testing, such as new gear destined
for rental, etc. Or, if they were more enterprising, they could buy the
gear at wholesale and then sell it via special auction or by posting
classified ads on their bulletin board.

More conspicuous by absence is the lack of reviews of "technical diving"
products from Halcyon, Dive Rite, OMS, Oxycheq, Abysmal, AUL, Sartek,
etc. etc. etc. (Disclaimer: I sell Halcyon, Oxycheq, etc. etc.)

> This is the process in use by a far more credible publication,
> Consumer's Union. Unfortunately CU knows nothing about diving and their
> readership is looking for magic quick answers, but that hasn't stopped
> Rodales yet, either.

Unfortunately, what works for consumer durables like washing machines,
etc. is lost on specialty items such as audio equipment and cameras.

Having said that, CR still is the best rag around for your basic
purchases.

--
Matt
matt@gol.com

In article <1g0fw2v.vioyis1qhfz0gN@yahoobb219000172010.bbtec. net>, matt@gol.com
says...
>
>Robert "Doc" Adelman, C.I.D. <lawyers-guns-money@att.net> wrote:
>

>
>More conspicuous by absence is the lack of reviews of "technical diving"
>products from Halcyon, Dive Rite, OMS, Oxycheq, Abysmal, AUL, Sartek,
>etc. etc. etc. (Disclaimer: I sell Halcyon, Oxycheq, etc. etc.)
>
>> This is the process in use by a far more credible publication,
>> Consumer's Union. Unfortunately CU knows nothing about diving and their
>> readership is looking for magic quick answers, but that hasn't stopped
>> Rodales yet, either.
>
>Unfortunately, what works for consumer durables like washing machines,
>etc. is lost on specialty items such as audio equipment and cameras.
>
>Having said that, CR still is the best rag around for your basic
>purchases.


But the CR "model" is copied in other publications that are far more
specialized. Practical Sailor is pretty much a "Consumer's Reports" for
sailboats, and I believe they have a sister publication for power boats as
well. Cook's Illustrated, while severely biased towards the culinary equivalent
of SB Droolers (tm), does equipment reviews the same way as CR and accepts no
advertising.

Maybe Scubapro has seen the writing on the wall, and realizes that fewer and
fewer people rely on publications like RSD to make gear choices, instead opting
to ask questions on Internet discussion forums. Maybe they figure it's time to
stop playing along with the bullshit charade game of "unbiased" magazine
reviews.

I am just amazed that anyone reads Rodale's. They seem to always just
publish crap. Give me Dive Training any day!

--
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Scott F. Migaldi, K9PO
MI-150972
PP-ASEL

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-----------------------------------
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www.hamwave.com

In article <binsi1$nhr$1@newshost.mot.com>, SFM <k9po@amsat.org> wrote:

€I am just amazed that anyone reads Rodale's. They seem to always just
€publish crap. Give me Dive Training any day!

<snicker>