New Goretex Pro Shell fabric beats eVENT?

[David Corbin]

'New Pro Shell is more breathable than anything ese available.'
"In lab tests, Pro Shell fabrics produced RET values between 3 and 6, with one carefully selected face fabric producing a score as low as 2.5. To put that in perspective, three-layer XCR has been quoted as having an RET of 5.1 – lower is better – while eVENT Is around 4.5." More: http://outdoorsmagic.com/news/article/mps/UAN/4480/v/1/sp

[EndoftheTrail]

Thanks for the link — interesting read!

Sight unseen, of course, but I am suspecting that there're the usual Gore smokescreen and hyperbole at play.

eVENT passes moisture well at both high and low humidity. Goretex performance, however, is very much affected by temp/humidity levels. Methinks that Goretex simply published the best performance point it could create in its own lab — and then shout out "GORETEX beat eVENT"!

Here are two more excerpts from the link above:

(1) "Bear in mind though that lab tests don't tell the full story and eVENT says, with some justification, that the way RET testing is conducted puts their material at a disadvantage. Real world testing suggests that this is true, we've found eVENT to be significantly more breathable than XCR and, to underline that, at least one Gore employee has told us that eVENT is roughly on a par with Windstopper, when it comes to breathability."

(2) "What hasn't changed is the basic technology of the membrane. It's still a ptfe layer with a thin smear of hydrophyllic PU on the inside to protect the membrane from contamination."

Sounds to me that Goretex left everything the same — except for the backing material, which will be woven instead of knitted. The thinner and lighter material should help to hinder the passing of moisture/vapor a bit less — but to what degree?

I bet when we get the next Gore brochures, it's going to sound like they accomplished something "totally revolutionary"…

[Brett .]

Show me the money.
Where is the link to the independent laboratory test report including initial conditions and results? Anyone can claim "best", but hearing it from the manufacturer who is biased should be judged with a grain of salt.

This new goretex is still a PFTE layer with a thin smear of hydrophyllic PU. That is the flow-limiting layer in the matrix, not the woven portion. Seems changing the fabric did make it lighter.. so I expect to see these NEW goretex jackets going for even more astronomical prices here in Japan, easily $700 plus.. while to this day, no employee I have talked to knows what "eVENT" is. I got one eVENT ladies jacket here off a rack full of them for $25. People just don't know it, nor buy it here.

After trying eVENT for my self; I'm totally sold. Its night and day at real-world humidity levels.

Edit:Goretex is still goretex, the water must condense to liquid form on the inside layer before soaking through and evaporating on the other side. Do you want liguid moisture inside your shell? A later poster mentioned HyVent; my DIAD uses this, and it seems to work similar to eVENT, no condensation on the inside; vapor passes directly through.

[Chris Jackson]

It's not just Gore. These days a plethora of manufacturers claim that their proprietary fabric is at least as breathable as eVENT. For example, Sierra Designs makes that (ludicrous) claim about their PU fabric, nanolite, and Patagonia makes inflated claims about their PU fabric. In fact the only manufacturer I'm aware of that publishes plausible breathability data is Montbell.

This BPL review of eVENT tents suggests that the objective behind the disreputable claims is to sow enough confusion and doubt in the mind of the customer that they cease to believe that any fabric has a significant advantage. Its somewhat akin to negative advertizing in political campaigns.

How do the manufactuers back up their inflated claims? As Ben mentioned, the trick is to run the breathability test under conditions of 100% humidity. The advantage of eVENT is that it breathes well at all humidities, including low humidity. In a PU or Goretex jacket, the humidity has to build up inside the jacket before water can diffuse through the PU layer in liquid form. The higher humidity makes the wearer feel sticky.

[Jaiden .]

TNF has some data on Hyvent here:
http://www.thenorthface.com/na/technologies/technologies-OU6.html

But, I'm not sure how this compares with anything.

[Woubeir (from Europe)]

I guess I will wait till I've heard more practical experience with these Pro Shells before choosing a side. I know how eVENT works, I know how gore-tex works but I would be absolutely stupid to ignore possible improvements, even if it's Gore.
I've read a few reviews from guy's who have used these jackets (btw indepent reviews from people not connected to Gore) and they were quite positive.
These Pro Shells show at least one interesting thing: by just choosing the right face fabric and a thin woven scrim, Gore has been able to lower vapor diffusion resistance from an average 5,1 for XCR to 3 (BTW, not every pro Shell has an RET of 3 or lower, it all depends on the face fabric). This simple move has made these jackets both lighter and more durable which I guess has it merits and should appeal to people who want to lighten their load.
Imagine you could combine this all with the new eVENT membrane. Now that looks like a wonderfull shell.

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