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andy,forgot to mention that the hot spgs is the only tub that filters all the water 100% of the time....no filter by-pass when therapy jets are being used. and the water looked like it as compared to some tubs in showrooms that i have experienced. in fact one dealer was looking for a scum line to prove a point about tub color...yuck!
I am grwoing a little tired of hearing about the no filter by-pass. I respect HotSpring for making a fabulously engineered tub. It is reliable and attractive. Like so many "exclusive" features on hot tubs, I wonder "How are the hundreds of thousands of people that don't have this feature surviving?" What is the beneft to the end user of the non-bypass? Is the water safer? No.Cleaner? Perhaps, but everyone else has good water too, right? My Two CentsHotTubMan
I also have a couple of pennies to pitch in about the filtering issue. I think the phrase "100 filtration" and "100% no-bypass filtration" are being intermixed. EVERY spa filters 100% of the water....eventually. By the way if you look on Marquis' website you will see that they show the bypass suctions in a diagram of their filter system. They use the phrase "100% of the filtered water..." not really the same thing. Now, having said that and being a Hot Spring dealer I think that with proper water chemistry the number of filters isnt as big an issue as the consumer is lead to believe. Afterall, In the new HS Vista you have 5 filters that are 65sq ft ea for a total of 325 sq ft of filtration. Overkill? I'd say.
Wow. Of your final 4 my advice would be to eliminate Master Spa. I carried them for a few yrs and had lots of reliability issues.