First of all ......thank you to everyone who has asked for help, or posted useful information here. With all of your help I was able to become somewhat informed about the pleasures and pitfalls of buying and owning a Hot Tub.... My wife and I purchased our first tub, a J365 yesterday for $7460.00 out the door tax, delivery, lift, custom cover ( opening the long way ) stairs and Versa Rail. We chose a Sahara shell and a Grey skirt. We opted to stear clear of the stereo...a bit pricey at $1065.00, althought it was the least expensive of the three. And we thought it had the best overall sound and performance.The speakers were closer to the water therefore I believe easier to here. All the tubs we tested had stereo systems in them......We found in the models we tested that Jacuzzis sounded the best by far...in this catagory. The Hot springs had a deep base sound that almost muffled the music even after adjustment and the Sundance, with thier pop up speakers....well.....they rattled in the cabinet / shell when I turned it up so that you could here the music over the jets.
We shopped the Sundance Optima and the Hotsprings Vanguard as well as the Jacuzzi. I was this close to purchasing the Hotsprings tub when the sales person disclosed to us ( about 45 minutes into our conversation ) that Hotsprings has been plagued with controller problems the last 18 months. So that sealed the deal....No Hotsprings.... He said they have had 5 controllers go out in the last 10 months....Other than that I thought it was a great tub... He has since called us three times, first reducing the tubs price by $350.00 and the second time adding a stereo and the third to add the stainless steel trim at no charge...... It all seemed very tempting ....BUT .... dosen' t mean much if I can't turn it on. I liked the exterior controls mounted on the outside of the skirt as well as the filtration system. I wasn't to crazy about the Moto Massage....I may be wrong but this looked like a feature that as time goes on could possibly encounter some issues. It may be me but this seemed to be the quietest tub I looked at. They also offered a 5 year no questions asked warranty on the heater......If it is worth anytingwe found the water fall a bit unusual.....the water seemed to trickle out of a clear plastic chute that we almost snapped off exiting the tub.....He also showed us an Artesian Spa / Island Series... no comparison....we passed.
We spent a lot of time in the Sundance Optima....another great tub..We liked the jets, the center foot massage and the soft tissue massage features. The jets had a great pulsating feel... very relaxing. I thought the lighting was a bit scant....but that didn't stop me from making up my mind.....We found the two seats that are on either side of the scimmer cabinet to be somewhat cramped.
( for us ) This is attributed to the filter sitting horizontally rather than vertically therefore taking up more tub space. ( in my opinion ). The foot message seemed to rise up a bit to high in the center of the floor for us. But we did like this feature.
We choose the Jacuzzi 365 because of its roomy interior and seating ( 91 x 84 ) the Jets seemed to be more comforting rather than stinging like in other tubs we tried. The foot message was lower and seemed to be just as comforting.
To sum this all up all three of these tubs had features we liked and disliked....I dont think we could have gone wrong on any of them. They all had great cabinets , and easy controls. They all had ozonators....
We now have a 6-8 week wait....I will post pics as soon as we are up and running.
Thank you all again.
