u/kahlil29

Context about me: AOWD with \~80 dives, decided it's time to get my own BCD. No plans for sidemount or tech diving anytime soon.

I did my Wreck Spec and would be interested in more wreck penetration dives in the future.

Mostly going to dive around South East Asia, warm tropical water diving with single back-mounted ALU 80 tanks.

Tried a BPW for the first time last month on my most recent dive trip. Couldn't really say that it helped my trim a lot, it was a bit hard to tell for certain. But overall it seems like most BPW designs are modular, would last longer and be repairable in the long term.

So far the main advice about gear that I've seen are:

1. Ensure that local dive shop can service/repair

2. Ensure that parts are available easily (standard modular system)

I was initially very interested in XDeep Ghost & Zen due to the supposed ergonomic designs and saw a couple of people using them, they had good things to say. After doing some more research I realized that they use a proprietary system for the Ghost and some proprietary parts for the Zen, so I started considering other brands.

I went down to a dive shop the other day and narrowed it down to the following, based on what they have and recommended:

1. Tecline Peanut 16 (Alu plate)

2. Tecline Donut 13 (Alu plate)

3. Dan Sun Titanium Mono 32 (Titanium plate)

No specific reason why Tecline over other brands. I live in Singapore so the other BPW brands easily available are Dive1 and Audaxpro. Checked these other brands out at another dive shop and wasn't overly impressed with them. Considered Halcyon for a brief moment but don't really see the need to pay 1.5-2x more for one of those.

After doing some reading, I decided that Alu backplate would be a good fit for me.

However the titanium backplate from Dan Sun seems very cool. Am I just falling for marketing?

:)

The company (Dan Sun) seems relatively new and niche but the BPW system would be modular, so I could always replace any of the components if things go really bad?

Open to other options if anyone has any suggestions.

Budget is 1300-1500 SGD (not super strict).

Context: I have a (rebranded) Skyworth 4K OLED TV and I recently bought a Samsung Q990F soundbar.
My TV has Google TV built-in, but I've recently been reading up about ACR and think I should switch to using a separate box and disconnect the TV from the internet.

Use-cases:

• Watching Movies + TV Shows via Jellyfin (have a NAS that runs the server)
• Immich to playback personal media (travel videos etc)
• Occasional Netflix, YouTube or Amazon Prime Video

I've been watching some content in Dolby EAC3 and also tested some Dolby TrueHD content (not the exact same content) with audio passthrough from an external PC via LibreElec (Kodi + Jellyfin add-on) and I've been very impressed by how good EAC3 sounds with my setup. e.g. Silo S01, The Last of Us S01 (both in EAC3). Super immersive, height and surround effects are really prominent.

That being said, I do want to keep the door open for Dolby TrueHD or DTS:X content, since my soundbar supports it and it's theoretically supposed to be better (or should I just be content with EAC3 because I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference, idk).

After doing some research, I was leaning towards a Ugoos 6B+ or 9 Pro OR a Homatics 4K Plus. I would be okay to ditch Netflix and Prime Video, but my partner isn't as adept at using Jellyfin etc so I still need a certified box that can play stuff from Netflix and Youtube in 4K.

After doing some more checking, I found posts in this subreddit that say that the Xiaomi Box S 3rd Gen does support TrueHD passthrough. Given that I won't be streaming TrueHD content often, since it seems like most TV shows usually have EAC3 audio, I think that should be fine?
I'm probably going to get a USB to Ethernet adaptor for stable internet/streaming.

Any idea on whether turning off the "Personalization" settings in the Xiaomi Box S works and would be better for privacy than my existing Google TV, given all the above context and requirements?
Any advice or suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance!