Atomic Aquatics Venom Mask

Atomic Aquatics Veno Mask

THE SPANKING-NEW mask that arrived came with a note from Atomic Aquatics; it said this was the very first unit they were able to pry from the protective paws of their engineers. Very cool, we thought. We love being the first in line to try out new stuff.

Atomic Aquatics is calling this mask the Venom, and from what we can tell, it's a blending of their SubFrame and Frameless masks. It has a reinforcing internal frame that's molded directly beneath the surface of the silicone rubber skirt, like the Subframe, yet it offers the relatively low profile of the Frameless. Also, its faceplate is single window like the Frameless, but it has a high bridge and tear-drop shape similar to the SubFrame's dual-window design.

The Venom comes across as a high-concept, stylish-looking piece of gear when it's being held in your hand, and it's really comfortable when mounted on your face. Its easy-to-use squeeze-to-adjust buckles are soft-mounted to the mask skirt, which allows a little bit of flexibility in strap positioning, plus they can be folded flat for packing.

Where the Venom differs from its SubFrame and Frameless cousins is in its faceplate construction. While the SubFrame and Frameless lenses use Ultraclear glass, which has quite a rep for optical quality in its own right, on the Venom mask Atomic uses an even higher-quality glass imported from Germany. Called Schott Superwite glass, it apparently allows more light to penetrate than even Ultraclear glass.

In the water, we find a testament to a good mask is that you don't notice it on your face. The Venom does a good job of getting there. Like its cousins, it offers an above-average field of view, and the soft skirt and watertight seal combined to make the Venom feel like a part of our face. And while we didn't actually put any measuring devices to the faceplate glass, cruising along at 30 feet on a sunny day with pretty good viz, we found looking at the sights through this bright distortion-free Superwite glass was like looking through no glass at all.

At Atomic Aquatics, we're divers too, and we're serious about our sport and the products we design. We're doing more than just developing new diving products, we're creating a whole new class of diving equipment. We're improving the quality of the diving experience through every product we make. We make no compromises along the way. Our use of high technology is always focused towards making diving simpler and more enjoyable. We developed the Atomic Aquatics regulators with the engineering philosophy that every detail, no matter how small, contributes to your overall diving experience. Improving the quality of that experience is our main concern. We want to assure that experience lasts a lifetime. Who Are These Guys? For over twenty years, Dean Garraffa and Doug Toth have been innovators in the diving industry with over a dozen patents to their credit from BC's to regulators to snorkels. In 1995 they founded Atomic Aquatics in Huntington Beach, California. Atomic Aquatics introduced the world's finest titanium regulators, whose innovative features and record breaking performance have become industry benchmarks. These were the first of many exciting new products to be coming your way.