Cuddling Couple Sleep System

So I compared the manufacturer's specs for the Enlightened Equipment Accomplice Elite in the 10 degree rating, size Regular (6'0") and the ZPacks Twin Quilt also in the 10 degree rating, size Long (6'0"). And it turns out that (unless you're a gram weenie), they're pretty identical. Here's what I got:

Both 900 fill power down

Girth
EE: 86"
ZPacks: 84"

Loft
EE: 3"
ZPacks: 2.75"

Fill weight
EE: 24.39oz
ZPacks:22.6oz

Total weight
EE: 33.93oz
ZPacks: 32.4oz

Price
EE: $695
ZPacks: $635

All in all, very close. The EE is just slightly wider and just slightly heavier – but we're talking 2 inches and not even 2 ounces. Both quilts are the same style opening, and both have a mechanism by which you can close the gap between people at the neck (the EE has a draft collar like flap and ZPacks has a snap closure). EE offers the option of water-resistant down fill, while ZPacks does not. EE is pricier for the comparable model to the ZPacks, but also offers an 800 and 850fp model at a significant cost savings (the 800 is 3 oz heavier than the 900). EE also allows for a more customized colorway, while ZPacks only has two options.

Perhaps the most notable differences are the shell materials, and the baffles. EE uses Phantom 10D nylon throughout, with the option to upgrade the bag entirely to 20D nylon, or just the head/foot areas to the burlier nylon. ZPacks uses Pertex Quantum GL nylon or Ventum Ripstop nylon, and cuben fiber for the baffles. I will admit that I don't know enough about the nitty gritty of either of these fabrics to say if there's a noticeable difference in breathability or durability.

The other major difference between these two bags are the baffling systems. EE uses a vertical baffle for the torso of the quilt, with a horizontal baffle at the footbox. ZPacks uses a consistent horizontal baffle throughout.

My girlfriend and I bought the Accomplice quilt, 30f and both have the rectangular exped UL7 pads. The quilt is great, as per other EE quilts, independent neck holes work really well… but what really surprised me was how well the elastic pad couplers it ships with work with the exped pads – it's just like one massive pad, no gap at all. I reckon this is more important for the cuddle than the bag itself.

My girlfriend and I have a EE accomplish and it's awesome. We use 2 REI statous pads held together with 2 shock cords. We use a silk bed sheet over the pads. The pads stay together pretty good. My girlfriend is going to sew a oversized pillow case type of thing out of silk to slip over our pads to eliminate the shock cords and bed sheet. The EE accomplish is awesome for spooning.

My girlfriend and I also use a ZPacks 20* quilt together. We love it down to about 25* then she gets cold. At that point, she would rather have her own bag to stay warm. I got the 20* hoping we could use it down to 30* consistently.

Getting up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night does allow drafts to come in. Not a problem unless it is really cold. We use the pad connectors from ZPacks and they work pretty well, especially since we both toss back and forth together. I think they would work perfectly with two rectangle pads instead of our neoair pads.

I would recommend the quilt. We plan to continue to use it on majority of our trips. The weight savings along with the comfort is just too good.

Scott

Hi Sophia

Ah well, I imagine many here know that is exactly what my wife and I do.

Airmats: parallel-sided ones work much better. Exped UL-7s work for us.

Tie tapes around the mats so we don't push them apart.

Two quilts with adequate width, one each. If it gets really cold, I double-layer the quilts over the two of us. That with snuggling worked with 650 g summer quilts down to -7 C one night. We slept well. (Quilts are MYOG.)

Our quilts have 'hoods' to keep our heads warm. Very important! Fleece hats are an alternative.

Quilts with foot-boxes are best – that way the foot end of each quilt stays under control. We find that quite important.

Cheers

We use Zpacks twin quilt, Neoair Large and Reg.

Our Zpacks has Water resistant down, no longer offered.

To combat the Neoair taper weirdness we invert one of the pads. Also, we use Velcro to attach the pads. (no knots, deploys in seconds, extremely light)

And it goes a litttle something Like Dissssssssss:

Excuse the crudeness…

the red is, say the hook side. The blue, longer, loop side connects the two hook sides. We used the sticky back to stick the red pieces to the pads. They havent come off yet and this is the second set of pads I've done this with.

I like this because you can get the pads really close together and the gap between the pads goes away.

Annnnd we keep the Velcro under our centers of mass for strength. Shoulders and waist

You seem to be running into the same issue my GF and I are running into with the mattresses separation during the night. We use an Accomplice 20* and it works great on our queen size car-camping air mattress. We've had it down to 15*, but we were wearing wool baselayers. Not sure how it would work if we were naked. She sleeps warmer than I do, but she's a foot shorter, too. We are going to try the velcro trick and see if that works better. I like the idea of a fitted sheet to keep the mattresses together.

In my experience the fitted sheet allows one pad to creep over the other. Ymmv

Are complaining EE users not employing the double strap it is supplied with? Even if we're not attaching the quilt to the pad we use this and the pads stay super snug together…

You could use the Thermarest universral coupling kit. My family has been using these things for over 20 years now and we've never had pads slip out. (with three kids, we couple five pads together using about three of these kits.)
Only one has broken, and it was not due to miss-use.
On warm weather trips, we ALWAYS, bring a fitted sheet.

While the double sleeping bags look pretty awesome these days, my wife is rather fond of her SD bag, so we just zip it up to either my FF bag or a warmer TNF bag.

Although all of our dual use stuff is "vintage gear" compared to BPL standards, it still works very well after a couple decades, and is still quite adaptable to family use.

Glad to know some of those work. I tried one first, before strings. … They are made to hold pads together right?!?!

I never could get it to stay in place. Ours would always loosen and the pads would come apart

know of a synthetic quilt option? I'm trying to figure out a way to fit wife and wet dog under the quilt, in the rainforest, so down is out. If anyone's done a MYOG affair, I'd be curious what the materials ended up costing you.

We use the Static 5 Luxe. She's 5'2 120 and Im 5"7 160. Have only slept on it half a dozen night so far.

The luxe works quite fine for us. Especially in colder weather.

Used with and expel duo quilt docent quite work. Doest go quite together well. the Quilt is made for 2 2o inch pads. We will proably do a MYOG quilt soon.

We are going to ry to see if we can both comfortably sleep in a Tarptent ProTrail.

Im curious to know how other who don't need space to themselves faire.

“-We sleep naked.” Hey!, that’s the trick I use— or that’s what I say when people want to borrow my down quilts or bags.

I know you don’t want to hear it, but when sharing a bag, it’s WAY warmer when each of you have a thin layer of poly long johns on. Bare skin on nylon just oils the bags faster and will require more washings and thus wear out the bag sooner. Also way more cold spots magically appear through the freezing night. Some places you sweat; some places you freeze. Polyjohns (new word) just even out the warmth. But if that’s not an option, I would learn to sleep with sweat and frost on those 20F nights and buy bags more often.

For sleeping bag, we use one bag; either the WM Megalite or Antelope depending on the temperature. My wife cut a microfiber fleece blanket to the shape of a sweetie pie (http://www.m.amazon.com/Functional-Design%C2%AE-Doubler-2-Expanders/dp/B0016MXS7I). And we use zippers we bought from WM. Luckily WM uses just one style of zipper. So we have a 24oz bag with a 9oz sweetie pie. For hot nights, we flip this over and have the blanket on top with the down on the bottom.

We use pad straps from thermarest for connection. I’ve never felt gaps between our 20” wide pads.

May everyone have a nice sleep in the woods,
-Barry
-The mountains were made for Tevas

Yeah, I know we'll be warmer with clothes – but we'd honestly rather bring a warmer, heavier bag and skip the baselayers than go with a lighter bag and be clothed all night. I realize this also means washing our bag more frequently, ultimately leading to a shorter overall lifetime. But I'm such a gear junkie anyway, that I can't imagine not upgrading our bag before we actually destroy it.

^^^
“… I realize this also means washing our bag more frequently …”

Not necessarily. A Recent Thread discusses a number of ways to get clean at the end of the day. There are other threads as well. And skin-to-skin is So much nicer that way.

"warmer when each of you have a thin layer of poly long johns on"

hehe, I suspect the love birds may feel differently when they hit a sufficiently cold night. If its warm though spoon away.

I am curious how you trail spooners out there manage to sleep on your shoulder all night. Maybe I should upgrade my ccf pad to an inflatable? Seems like two people could pop a inflatable though? I don't know.

two people shouldn't pop an inflatable. I'm fat and I sleep on air pads off and on when I don't hang my hammock. Most of you skinny folks could easily double up to equal my weight. Air pad users should be more worried about punctures than weight.

-Tim

"Yeah, I know we'll be warmer with clothes – but we'd honestly rather bring a warmer, heavier bag and skip the baselayers than go with a lighter bag and be clothed all night."

Or just bring a sheet to line the inside of your bag. That way, the "oils" are on the sheet, and not the bag itself.

It could also be used as a good layering tool as well.

I'm just not sure I'd recommend a very "cold" weathermen person bag. If sleeping in very cold weather, tossing a warm weather two person bag over two 3 season bags might be more adaptable.

Frankly, It's great that you and your partner have similar metabolisms. My wife & I are a foot and 100lbs apart, so we have very different thermal requirements.

I have a single EE quilt in the extra wide version. When it was really cold (26 degrees, and our quilt and bag are rated at 30) I draped it over my wife (inside her own mummy bag) and we got close to share the warmth. If you're spooning, the single, extra wide might be just fine for you. We just received a 20* Accomplice today and everybody's smiling at the fit and function. We're looking forward to our first trip with it at Ostrander Lake next weekend.