On the other hand if I got over 200 nights of use out of something costing about $700 I'd consider that still pretty good value considering some of the other benefits

none of the tent shills on youtube ever tell this side of the DCF experience.

@@Kevinschart Many DCF tents on KZfaq are sent to KZfaq for free by brands for review. If you ask them to buy them, of course they will not buy them. The price is several times more expensive! ! ! !

Yeah the bias matters, but I think all pyramid manufacturers are taking this into consideration, so you shouldn't see HMG, Locus, or MLD wearing in any significantly different ways. I'd like for some more pyramid owners to chime in, but I'm sure all the brands get floppy hems after a while.

@@benkilbourne3937 Not sure about pyramid designs, but Zpacks is not taking this into account, but needs to.

@@wolfeadventures have you seen zpacks get floppy, stretch, or shrink? I've always wondered about that.

Also, both are chemical fabrics. Why is DCF so expensive? You must not know the reason. Because no Chinese company is willing to produce it! The scope of use of DCF is much lower than that of nylon and polyester fabrics, so DCF fabrics have always been produced by American companies. Once there are no cheap inputs from Chinese companies, everything will become expensive. If there is a Chinese company willing to produce DCF, then a DCF tent will not cost £400,500, but £150

Hey Brad! Nice to run into you even if it's only on the internet. I'll tell Porter hi. I hope you are well!

Thanks for popping in to say hi, Ron! I bought a silnylon solomid from you last year and am very happy with it. I'm super curious about your new silpoly though. Wondering if I should have waited for that. You find it to be just as durable as the nylon?

I'd like that info as well

Looks like a good material. I'd definitely buy a little pyramid made of silpoly if I found one I liked

@@benkilbourne3937 I know Liteway Equipment (out of Ukraine) has their Pyraomm line-up in DCF & Silpoly. Also, Yama Mountain Gear is supposedly working on their version of a silpoly mid!

@@zacharykuhns6060 Oh nice, good to know!

I could see the dif thicknesses responding differently for sure. Not sure what it would look like though. I'll dig into this a little bit and see if anyone has ideas.

I don't, sorry, but the DCF is bigger for sure.

As far as I can tell, silnylon is slightly stronger for the weight. But I don't know how much stronger. If it's really marginal, I'd probably pick silpoly just cause it doesn't attract sand as much and it doesn't stretch when wet. If MLD made a silpoly pyramid I'd for sure give it a try

@@benkilbourne3937 I've had a correspondence about this with Mike Cecot-Scherer, who has designed literally hundreds of lightweight tents for the industry. He has access to manufacturer testing labs and to their repair records so has a better handle than most on what works and what doesn't. He is a big proponent of silpoly, because the lower water absorption means less panel stretch in the wet, which means that during storms the panels will work as designed rather than bowing and flapping - and you don't have to keep getting up to reset the pitch. HIs only reservation is that you shouldn't go crazy and use anything under 20D in weight. Yes - in the lab silnylon is slightly stronger, but it has less UV resistance so in the field it soon becomes weaker. Any in any case he says that in a shelter with properly designed reinforcements, fabric failure is rarely seen in repair labs, so it's a non-issue. Plus he says that in the lab there is more variation between batches and manufacturers than there is between fabrics. The only worry with silpoly is that none of the manufacturers known for stormworthy products are using it - eg MLD or Hilleberg. I suspect that's simply because they have spent a lot of time working with suppliers to achieve the highest possible quality of silnylon and they can't yet match that quality in silpoly. I have some Hille silnylon offcuts and it's different class. But for MYOG the qualities available seem comparable, and some of the better cottage companies like Yama and Durston now use silpoly exclusively.

@@tullochgorum6323 I think some of it is also marketing. There's so much focus on strength:weight that the different qualities of each material get overlooked. DCF took off before it was extensively field tested and it seemed like companies were rushing to release a product to capture that end of the market. In a lot of cases the design techniques to make a DCF tent would negate the weight savings of using the material but it didn't really matter because people were buying into the concept of a new and better technology.

I like pyramids. they do well in most conditions. I'd want one made of a high quality nylon or dcf though. I've heard the ali express nylon is questionable. Here's Ron Bell tearing both materials: mountainlaureldesigns.com/mld-pro-silnylons-vs-cheap-china-counterfeits/

@@benkilbourne3937 hey thanks for the reply. I actually just received the pyraohm from Liteway lol. I figured its better to put some extra cash in for some quality gear. For sure a pain coming from freestanding tents and huge footprint and wasted space. Looks cool and probably will do well in winds tho. I was just on a mountain trip with my cheap mongar 2 dome tent and it handled the winds well so I assume this will too. Again... The huge footprint might suck imo. And ive not even went on a trip yet lol. But, i save some weight and get to use my trekking poles for dual use :)

It's waterproof, much stronger, doesn't absorb water and doesn't sag?

@@ogarza3 silnylon is waterproof, plenty strong enough, and for several hundred dollars, I'm willing to tighten a couple guy lines.

@@ernststravoblofeld it is a common mistake due to marketing I suppose. Silnylon is water resisitant, it WILL wet out and absorb water, it is just a matter of when. DCF is waterproof, absolutely impermeable. However from the point of view that people should buy what works the best for their circumstance I can agree with you, but that doesn't mean that I'm blind to how DCF is clearly superior in terms of performance.

@@ogarza3 Have you ever had silnylon wet through? Has anyone ever? It takes more pressure than anyone is going to have in any reasonable situation. There's your marketing nonsense. Any conditions that would make silnylon wet through, would rip any lightweight material to shreds.

@@ernststravoblofeld At this point I starting to believe you are simply trolling, those hydrostatic head tests are only loosely related to real world use, and present only the absolute best case scenario for the fabrics, additionally those pressures that no one will give in a reasonable situation? I don't believe you have done the math, a 165lb kneeling person applies ~13psi, which is equivalent to ~9000mm, high quality "waterproof" silnylon is in the 3000-5000, Hilleberg uses 5000 for example, so according to the lab tests in the best possible scenario not even expedition quality sinlyon is "waterproof" against an average adult kneeling on it. lol...