The Reviews Are In

11/09/2023

Our Heavy freediving neck weight is meticulously crafted to enhance your diving experience by enabling you to explore greater depths with increased speed and safety, all while delivering an unparalleled level of comfort. Boasting our innovative Responsive Memory Architecture, it guarantees an extraordinary fit, seamlessly melding with your body like a natural extension. Renowned deep freedivers Luca Malaguti and Brad James have put it to the test. What benefits does it offer, and how does it compare to the competition? Let's hear their insights.

Luca Malaguti

I've been using this for a while here in Canada, and because the water is very cold, we use very thick wetsuits, five or seven mil wetsuits, and so we need a little bit of extra weight. The first thing I like about it is the shape and the design. The surface area really allows for a nice fit around your neck and it doesn't move. That's one of the beautiful things, even with a thick wetsuit, like a seven-millimeter wetsuit that compresses, the neck weight does not shift around even at depth, so that's an excellent feature that I really like. And it kind of just tucks away between your shoulders and your head, almost as comfortable as an airline pillow, the ones you use to fall asleep on a flight. I really appreciate that design because when you are freefalling on a deep dive or you are spearfishing, you really don't want your neck weight to move around and the surface area of this new shape and design really helps to retain that comfort.

The other thing I really like about this neck weight is that it's adjustable, so you can really adjust it based on your neck size and the wetsuit that you're wearing, and last but not least, one of my favorite things is that the silicone is really really grippy. So with a smooth skin wetsuit which I'm wearing right now, it doesn't move as you can tell. The silicone will grip to the wetsuit material so it's just an extra feature that really allows it to stay in place. I know that these neck weights may seem expensive for some, but please be aware that these neck weights are handmade in Greece, in Athens, and they're made by a company that follows ISO and European standards. That's one thing I really love and promote about Alchemy.

Brad James 

Good day team, today I want to talk to you about something really cool, and that is the new Alchemy 2kg neck weight. So what I've got here in front of me is the original 1.55 kg neck weight, the heaviest you could get up until now, and the new two-kilo neck weight. If we look at them side by side obviously the old one's a bit longer to achieve that heavier weight, whereas the new one it's shorter, which gives it a nice snug fit around the neck, but it's a lot wider. And at first glance, you might think that's not necessarily a good thing, it might not be as comfortable, I know this one you kind of forget you're wearing it after a while, but actually, this one is amazing. That extra surface area on the inside really helps grip to the wetsuit, meaning it moves less during the dive.

You still can put it on, get that nice molded shape but with the extra width it doesn't really move as much, you notice it even less once you've started diving, and once you hit that freefall it's there it doesn't move, it doesn't distract you, it's really a great piece of kit, especially if you need a bit more weight to get down like I do. This allows me to take a bit of weight off my belt and redistribute it to my neck, once again that's going to give me a nice straight fast freefall position, so all gains, all wins. If you need a little bit of extra weight, this version is going to be the one for you.