Stove comparison chart

The Primus Omnilite is a seriously loud stove. Pretty ridiculous, actually. For this reason I purchased the Quietstove Silent Muter Damper Cap, in the hopes of reducing decibels in the evenings.  And it works ridiculously well.

And it works. Really works. The difference in noise volume is pretty surprising.
What’s more, there is more control and more evenly distributed heat with this unit, since rather than going mostly straight up, the flame is dispersed sideways, while the tremendous heat of the cap also continue to deliver heat straight up. All great reasons to have this on hand.

I plan to keep this available and in my stove system kit, but unless I’m really trying to lower decibels, I won’t likely use this unless I really want quiet, or unless I am cooking, which requires better heat control and distribution on a wider base.

The reason is around cleaning and maintaining the Primus Omnilite stove itself. The differences in metal expansion of this unit seems to create a very tight seal with the stove once you’ve passed some heat through it for a while. Even when cooled, the cap doesn’t come off easily, and I worry about damaging the stove itself. The stove does require regular cleaning, so adding and removing this unit regularly has me worried. If there was a way to keep it from getting stuck, I would likely use this every time I bust out the Primus Omnilite, but as it, if I’m going for water boiling on winter backpacking trips, this will stay inside the backpack.