Duomid (w/inner) vs Duplex – so what are the negatives

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I don’t own either (I do own a cuben Solomid XL) and my thoughts are as follows:

The duomid negatives:

could be a little short for people over 6′ (peoples experiences tend to vary on this one)

TIGHT for two – the duplex would be better for two people

Kind of heavy when used with the inner all the time – though it is modular – I use mine sans bug inner when I can.

The duplex negitives:

not as wind worthy (but much more room for two)

sloppy looking pitch (at least the ones I have seen)

not modular

lighter weight cuben standard (though the 0.74 is available)

not as good of fit and finish as compared to MLD (but perfectly serviceable)

If I were using it for two people where I needed bug protection most of the time, I would go with the Duplex.  If I were using it solo and wanted to be able to use the shelter with or without bug protection I would get the Duomid.

Bonus points in the Duomid’s favor if you camp often above treeline.

Deduct points from the Duomid if you are going to use it for two often (You might look at the Locus Gear Happi or HMG Ultamid 2 instead for two people.)

My one big strike against the duomid is the single door – meaning I really like having two full doors to completely open and have a nice cross breeze.

Having owned the solplex (and I have seen the duplex in person many, many times) my one big strike against that one is the minimal vestibule (compared to the duomid).  I am terribly spoiled with that HUGE space inside the duomid – either with a solo inner or sans inner – heck, I can even comfortably pee in my vestibule when the weather is nasty!

I too have a Solomid XL but I have had Hex a mid Long, Solplex, Duplex and even an Alphaplex, not to mention the HMG ULtamid 2 and YMG Cirraform.  I am 6 ft 5 inches tall and weigh about 180. I mostly hike solo but bought the Duplex for a trip with my son who is 10. If he ever wanted to hiking agin I would buy a Triplex or an insert for the Ultamid 2.  If you are sharing with your partner and possibly sharing a twin quilt the duplex will be perfect for cuddling

YMMV

I have both, but only use the duplex so far for the following reasons:

• Live in New Zealand where it can rain almost any time and the double inner of the duomid allows rain to get in when opening the door as opposed to the duplex where the inner is less directly exposed. The vestibule space is very tight with one door and double inner. In hindsight the single inner might have been a better option.
• weight – the duomid plus inner is about 150 g over spec for some reason – not a major but it all adds up
• simplicity of set up, probably due to familiarity with the duplex but I can’t consistently get the duomid outer to sit off the inner at the corner wall lines
• Biting bugs (mosquitos and what we call sandflies) are a year round issue most places here so I would not consider going without bug netting meaning the duomid modularity isn’t really a big feature
• got the duplex first and fell for it big time, it still makes me almost laugh out loud at the space and protection in such a light and compact package.
• i would probably go for the triplex though in hindsight as its a wee bit tight for two.

As mentioned, the DuoMid is really a one person shelter. If you view it as such and use a solo inner in the back half then you have a nice protected sleep area and the whole setup is quite a bit more capable in challenging weather than the Duplex, which is reliant on a lot more stakes and a complex pitch.

Because of the difference in capacity, these shelters aren’t really comparable. I like mids though because they’re so simple to pitch and you have a lot of space for one. Fiddling with a pitch isn’t my favourite thing to do at the end of a big day, and the Duplex is harder to get right.

Another big difference is that the DuoMid + inner is a full double walls setup, so it’ll prevent you from contacting the condensation. Depending on where you hike this is a big functional difference.

Jennifer,

I wonder if Ron would/could make a custom Duomid with 2 doors…

The Seek Outside shelters have two doors and it’s a nice feature.

Rob, I’m actually designing my own!  I’m going to try my hand at making a pyramid and I’m going to do a dual-door one to see if I like it…..

Wow, that’s very cool…great way to get the features you want.  Let us know how it turns out!

Fiddling with a pitch isn’t my favourite thing to do at the end of a big day, and the Duplex is one of the harder shelters to get right.

Dan, while I certainly respect that your opinion is based on your experience with the Duplex, I have to say that your statement is the polar opposite of my experience.  Yes, it took a couple of hours of tweaking and trying different guy setups in the back yard, but now that I have it dialed in I find pitching the Duplex to be easier than any shelter I have owned save the Notch, which was it’s equal. Honestly, most of what I added/created is now standard on the Duplex.

I simply wanted to offer a very different opinion on the Duplex’s “ease of use”.

“I’m going to try my hand at making a pyramid and I’m going to do a dual-door one to see if I like it…”

Good for you! That worked out well for me, combining features from a couple different shelters. And you have the duomid to use as a pattern, which should help immeasurably. (or measurably, I suppose)

“Dan, while I certainly respect that your opinion is based on your experience with the Duplex, I have to say that your statement is the polar opposite of my experience.  Yes, it took a couple of hours of tweaking and trying different guy setups in the back yard, but now that I have it dialed in I find pitching the Duplex to be easier than any shelter I have owned save the Notch, which was it’s equal.”

This has been my experience as well.  I find the Duplex to be extremely easy to pitch.

I’m certainly not a Duplex expert but I met quite a few Duplex owners when hiked the PCT in 2014 and almost universally when I asked about it they said they hated pitching it. Obviously your experiences differ from that, and I’m sure you can get quite good at it when proper practice. It’s probably the kind of thing where if you put in the proper effort then you’ll get good results and most people just don’t bother to learn and expect it to pitch itself.

In the context of this thread though, the DuoMid is undoubtably easier. It’s one pole & 4+ stakes compared to 2 poles and 8+ stakes. On bad ground that’s twice as much effort getting stakes in. Geometrically the DuoMid is also a much simpler shape. If you can estimate one right angle then the whole thing goes up perfect. With more complex shapes there’s usually a few angles you need to get right. Not typically that hard on good, flat ground but on wonky, rocky terrain it can make a difference.

Obviously there’s also upsides to a more complex shape, such as the headroom two poles provides. That’s why I prefer single pole mids for solo occupants but two pole mids for two occupants.

To compare apples to apples, the Duomid sets up with one pole and four stakes and the Duplexsets up with two poles and six stakes, in fact. Or, if you want to count side panel tie outs (as you have for the Duplex), it becomes one pole eight stakes versus two poles eight stakes. And then the bottom mid panel tieouts on the Duomid give you the option to go one pole twelve stakes for the Duomid, but that would be an unfair comparison.

I agree with the above posters who find the Duplex relatively easy to set up. It does take a few pitches before you figure out what works, but after that it’s plain-sailing. For me, set up the first two corner tie-outs to give the desired orientation (as you would for the Duomid), then set the base of the pole a few inches back from an imaginary line between them and guy it perpendicular to the line between the two staked corners. Surely no more difficult than estimating a right angle (particularly on uneven ground.

The Duomid and Duplex are both rectangles. Neither is a simpler shape than the other.

People with oldermodel Duplexes and who didn’t add linelocs may well find set-up more difficult.

As another Duplex owner also have to agree it’s absolute nonsense that’s it’s fiddly to pitch, this coming from a guy that only has the use of 1 arm as well.

The Duplex has it’s problems but pitching isn’t one of them

The Duplex has it’s problems but pitching isn’t one of them

What shelter doesn’t? :)

I found it imperative to replace all of the (fixed length on the original Duplex design) guys with adjustable guys…I used lineloc 3s and mini linelocs. This configuration is now the standard as delivered from ZPacks.  I also find using adjustable poles to work the trick…makes adjusting for uneven campsites simple and easy.

John H nailed it. Adding lineloc 3s and using adjustable poles to a Duplex makes it easy to pitch. I’ve never pitched it with fixed length poles but I’m guessing it would make it more challenging as I often found it useful to go up or down a cm or two to accommodate uneven ground.

“To compare apples to apples, the Duomid sets up with one pole and four stakes and the Duplex sets up with two poles and six stakes, in fact. Or, if you want to count side panel tie outs (as you have for the Duplex), it becomes one pole eight stakes versus two poles eight stakes.”

To achieve the full shape of the DuoMid you need 4 stakes (one per corner) and then there’s opportunity to add many more to beef up the pitch as desired. To achieve the full shape of the Duplex you need 8 stakes (4 corners, 2 for ridgeline, 2 to lift canopy) and then there’s opportunity to add more. You could omit the two that lift the canopy but you wouldn’t achieve the full shape, which is why Zpacks says 8 are required.

My point is only that the DuoMid is simpler – not that the Duplex is bad. Try setting up a Duplex with only one pole and 4 stakes and you won’t get very far.

My point is that you don’t NEED the two stakes to lift the canopy on the Duplex any more than you need the mid-height tie-outs on the Duomid to lift the canopy. Lifting the canopy in fact disrupts the pitch (IME).

I certainly wouldn’t set up the Duplex with one pole and four stakes – I’m not insane. But I would as soon set it up with six stakes and two poles as I would a Duomid with one pole and four stakes (which was the point of my apples to apples comment). And yes, I’m aware that makes the Duplex moderately more labour intensive to pitch, but I maintain that it is the correct comparison.

Apples to apples, apples to oranges….doesn’t matter. i asked for the comparison and you all were kind enough to give honest accounts of your experience.Thank you. What I have condensed from the discussion is that the Duomid is slightly easier to pitch and offers less room. The opposite for the duplex. I heard no issues with quality of build on either and weights are comparable as unfortunately the majority of the time I would need the inner for the Duomid. We are coming from an FC2 so less room is not a good thing. For two in the rain the Duplex vertical doors sound like a good idea as well. Along with reading the posts here and not being able to see the two set up I tapped off the footprints on the floor and set up lines tied off to trekking poles and  weights simulating the interior wall dimensions of the 2. No surprise the Duplex is more livable for us. It was good to hear that there were no real negatives from most. Thanks again for the help.

jimmyb

Yeah the Duplex is great. We rode out two nasty storms in it last summer including one where I poorly selected the tent site in a rush as a storm started. The bathtub will keep you dry.

One thought: the Duplex is not huge and as discussed earlier the vestibules are tight as well. My son and I (both 5′ 6″) with 20 inch pads are pretty tight inside. Have you considered a Triplex?

My point is only that the DuoMid is simpler – not that the Duplex is bad. Try setting up a Duplex with only one pole and 4 stakes and you won’t get very far.

And try setting up the Duomid with a inner and see which takes longer…………

Or messing about with a V-pole setup, or having to join 2 shorter poles together, or pitching on uneven ground……………..

If the Duomid takes 10 seconds less to put up is irrelevant, the fact is the Duplex is NOT a fiddly tent to put up

Mark: The DuoMid inner can stay clipped inside. There’s no extra work.

“I heard no issues with quality of build on either…”

Zpacks gear used to be pretty rudimentary but they’ve been steadily improving their quality. When I first starting ordering from them (2009?) it was a bit disappointing. Since then I’ve purchased a few backpacks and each has been noticeably better sewn than the last. When I last made a big purchase from them (2013) the gear was getting pretty well made but still not quite as professional as MLD. If they’ve continued refining at the same pace then the quality may be similar now.

https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/100642/

http://www.trek-lite.com/index.php?threads/talk-me-out-of-a-zpacks-duplex.660/

its all been rehashed on the duplex

i dont own either one, so take this comment as intrawebz theorizing

but

• mld is doubled walled (mesh)
• mld has a zipper closure … read the comments on the last page of the BPL link above
• mld uses one pole

what im REALLY interested in is how the zpacks handles all day rain and wind conditions (brit or coastal PNW) in the shoulder/winter seasons … in other words continuous poor weather

;)