Speakman 2.5GPM High Pressure Adjustable Shower Head

So one morning as I was taking a shower, I noticed just how gross and rusty my who-knows-how-many-decades-old Water Pik massage shower head was. Time to replace! was my thought at the time, till I found out a bit later that the model had been discontinued and replaced with a newer version which on all accounts were highly inferior to the model I had been using (according to most of the Amazon reviews anyway). So begin my search for a new shower head and how I came across this particular unit. My requirements wasn't anything special, but it is something that a lot of shower heads on the market apparently fail to do. And that is to provide a high pressure water, not just in velocity, but also in volume that is at least as good as my old shower head (ofc, if it was better, it'd be great, but I was satisfied with my previous shower). This unit was mentioned many times in various review sites as being one of the top units, "used by high class hotels" they would say. On top of being advertised as a high pressure unit and with a nice build quality to it, I jumped on it. I got the brushed chrome version as I saw a couple of reviews/pics on here that mentioned the paint rusting or something and it looked like they had polished, so I spent a little more in the hopes that mine wouldn't meet the same fate. When I finally got the unit, it was gorgeous! Very big, as some of the reviews had mentioned, but it doesn't put me off in the slightest. The brushed chrome is also great and I'm glad I went with it over the polished one. Installation was simple and I didn't have to use any tools to tighten it and saw no leaking in the one week I've used it (use all of the teflon tape included. The connector/sleeve is fairly long, you have to insert the unit into the pipe a bit before the threading actually begin, so insert it till you can't anymore, then start spinning to screw it on. If it is not screwing on, change the angle you are screwing it in a bit. I noticed some reviews noting they can't get it on, but these use the standard 1/2 inch thread just like any other shower head in the U.S., so it'll definitely fit). Once it's on, it looks pretty good, and I especially liked the channeled/bowled edges as it seems to help the water drip off the face of the shower head once the water is turned off. As some reviewers noted, the three mode advertisement is a lie, this unit has two modes, the wide spread where water sprays out of the five outer circles with decent pressure, and the narrow spread, where water comes out of the tiny holes in the inside circle of the face, with a little bit higher pressure. Overall the shower head is decent. The wide spread is decently wide and while not great, the pressure was enough to get shampoo out of my fairly thick hair. My biggest issue however, is with the narrow spread which I often like to use in my old unit. While there is definitely pressure in each of the individual tiny stream of water that comes out, they don't combine together to become a nice focused stream of high pressure water. Instead, they each remain individual streams, so it feels more like you are being sprayed with a water gun that shoots high pressure but tiny stream of water. The individual streams combined do provide a pulse massage sort of feel and do feel pretty good, but unfortunately, it is not a spray of high pressure water like my old unit and that I needed (think more like a garden hose shooting a concentrated stream of water that you'd use to spray your backyard deck for instance, a single strong and big (but narrow) stream, rather than a bunch of strong but tiny individual stream). Ultimately, I replaced the unit after a week of use as I couldn't go without my narrow stream and replaced it with the Take a Shower LLC Fire Hydrant Spa shower head which did a much better job (insane water pressure!) in both the narrow and wide streams with some tradeoffs (read my review on that if you want to find out more). Some images of the Speakman unit vs the Fire Hydrant unit to showcase the difference in size is attached. the Speakman is much larger than my Water Pik unit (not pictured because it's too gross to look at) but the Fire Hydrant unit is much smaller than my Water Pik unit, so this is the comparison of bigger than average vs smaller than average. The Fire Hydrant unit in case anyone is curious and is looking for it, search on amazon for "take a shower llc fire hydrant spa" or link here: Best Shower Head for Low Water Pressure - The Original Fire Hydrant Spa Plaza Massager Shower Head in Chrome Make sure you read my review on that first to know what you are getting into though, as there are some tradeoffs which while I felt was way worth it, is something you should still know going in.