I was of the same opinion you were. I had a 48/38/28 triple and 11-32 8sp that I liked the gear spacing of. The triple is a unit construction with all the rings bolted to each other. As it happens our newest tandem has this exact gearing but the crank-set is a higher quality with individually swappable rings. I have a strong stoker and tandems are just that bit faster even with a less strong stoker. The gears don't feel quite the same to me. I'm thinking strongly of bumping the big ring up a couple teeth and dropping the granny a couple or few teeth to reflect the different power characteristics of the tandem vs single. YMMV.