It’s been a while since we had a mask thread and I thought it would be nice to hear what others are using now.
I recently purchased an Mares X-Comfort. Mares’ write up sounded wonderful. “Elegant and compact, with a skirt designed to offer you unbeatable comfort. The contact surface between mask and skin is greater than with traditional skirts, affording unparalleled comfort and making it possible to enjoy long dives without leaving an unsightly and uncomfortable indentation around the face. More demanding divers will also appreciate the "self-equalizing" effect achieved through an increase in the contact surface of the mask with increasing depth. This unique feature minimizes the need to equalize the mask during the descent. Ergonomic, quick-adjusting buckles are positioned on the skirt. The windows are symmetrical and available with corrective. Very low volume”
After getting the mask I can say it is comfortable, but the field of vision is not that good and the mask strap is too small to hold snorkels in the usual way. The lenses also sticks way out from the face when at the surface and creates more water drag. I haven’t been able to test it in deep water yet, but it appears the self-equalizing feature is from the mask being pushed closer to the face from the skirt flexing as water pressure increases.
This masks, like most diving mask, even most of the ones supposed to be designed for freediving, has my all time mask complaint – that is the lense is angled down so scuba divers can see their gauges and where they are going when they descend feet first! To me this totally stinks because freedivers move head first so it’s the upper ward view that is most important. Angling the lense downward does a real disservice by cutting the indirection view and forcing the head to come up to see ahead which substantially increasing drag. Not to mention a sore neck!
I recently purchased an Mares X-Comfort. Mares’ write up sounded wonderful. “Elegant and compact, with a skirt designed to offer you unbeatable comfort. The contact surface between mask and skin is greater than with traditional skirts, affording unparalleled comfort and making it possible to enjoy long dives without leaving an unsightly and uncomfortable indentation around the face. More demanding divers will also appreciate the "self-equalizing" effect achieved through an increase in the contact surface of the mask with increasing depth. This unique feature minimizes the need to equalize the mask during the descent. Ergonomic, quick-adjusting buckles are positioned on the skirt. The windows are symmetrical and available with corrective. Very low volume”
After getting the mask I can say it is comfortable, but the field of vision is not that good and the mask strap is too small to hold snorkels in the usual way. The lenses also sticks way out from the face when at the surface and creates more water drag. I haven’t been able to test it in deep water yet, but it appears the self-equalizing feature is from the mask being pushed closer to the face from the skirt flexing as water pressure increases.
This masks, like most diving mask, even most of the ones supposed to be designed for freediving, has my all time mask complaint – that is the lense is angled down so scuba divers can see their gauges and where they are going when they descend feet first! To me this totally stinks because freedivers move head first so it’s the upper ward view that is most important. Angling the lense downward does a real disservice by cutting the indirection view and forcing the head to come up to see ahead which substantially increasing drag. Not to mention a sore neck!
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