2-Person Sleep Systems: Pads, Quilts, etc.

There are a couple threads which talk about such things:
http://tinyurl.com/2yu2sr
http://tinyurl.com/2sjez4
My wife and I decided on the Feathered Friends Penguin (http://tinyurl.com/yokt65) and Toucan Deluxe ground sheet (http://featheredfriends.com/util/toucan.htm). We got ours with the new "Nanotech" fabric (not listed on the web page). Side Note: Their web page is ridiculously out of date and incorrect. Their products are much better than their web site (but I digress). We chose the heavier ground sheet for comfort reasons only. I plan on putting in a real review, but here is my quick summary:

General: 4 out of 5
Advantages:
1) Big puffy bag.
2) Both the bag and ground sheet weigh significantly less than the site says.
3) Quite roomy.
4) Design is solid and keeps you from slipping around or having any drafts via the edges.

Disadvantages:
1) There is a little spot at the bottom where you have to pull out a puffy section of the bag to prevent a draft.
2) Their is no draft tube to prevent gaps between the two people.

Room for Improvement: In general, the bag is meant to do double duty as both a shared bag and an extremely roomy singly person bag. I think this is a mistake. I'm not sure why anyone would want such a roomy bag (I certainly don't) unless car camping (in which case I'll bring along a really heavy (and cheap) synthetic bag). I think they could solve both the disadvantages mentioned by simply gearing this towards its primary use. They could also taper the bag a bit towards the toes and shave a little off the weight while still maintaining plenty of room.

Speaking of which, I believe Feathered Friends was in the process of making a tapered two person bag (which would be lighter and less roomy) but I forgot the link to it.

Nunatak also makes a double quilt, with the option of a draft flap in the middle. We use a modified (homemade) version of this that velcros onto the bottom of our DAMs for complete warmth and comfort. But you really need to have a good draft stop mechanism down the middle to make the system work in colder temps…

Ross & Allison, I complete agree regarding the draft issue. That's the main problem with the zipped-together Big Agnes Nuggets that we use now; it's so drafty it's not much better than sleeping without bags at all.

Also, I'm looking more at Synthetics as opposed to Down. I do a lot of camping on the Atlantic Coast of Canada, where I lived for many years, and down is pretty useless there. Everything gets soaked pretty quickly by the fog & spray.

Perhaps the best solution would be a pair of Synthetic quilts.

Yeah, you may have to make it yourself or do some significant modification on a couple of quilts. I like Allison's idea of sealing the edges of a quilt. That is the main reason I didn't go with the Nunatuk. We are both pretty restless sleepers so I'm sure we would have kicked off the edges, thus exposing us to the cold. I like the design of the Feathered Friends, in that you don't have to worry about that (it is zipped to the bottom sheet). Even better, the sleeping pads slip into the bottom sheet so you are assured of staying on your pad. That being said, you pay a bit of a weight penalty for the roominess (nothing is free). Of course, we will end up doing the other modification, which is the creation of a draft collar. The draft between us didn't bother me as much as my wife, but that is probably because I have broader shoulders. I think we ended up putting some clothing in there to clog things up. It would be nice if someone made something with both the draft collar and the sealed edges (and made it in both a synthetic and down version). The DIY forum has a lot of great advice and I would imagine working with synthetics is a lot easier than working with down.

I use 3-4 clothespins and my Golite down vest to fill in the drafty hole. It can be removed for close snuggling and easily adjusted to stay out of the way. Plus, multiuse so you don't really add any weight to a quilt set up.