My Luxurylite bags have been awesome.

as others have pointed out ... you can easily get the kelty cosmic down which is a proven bag with the same weight and en-tested temp range for 1/2 the price retail, or up to 1/4 the price on a good sale

seems that the luxury lite is available for 1/2 the price as well

some companies try to go mainstream by appealing to the more general, less knowledgeable consumer ... thats their call ... they should however be prepared from a backlash from those fans that believe the company should be more focused ...

if i were in the market for a lower fill sleeping bag, then i would think this ULA one aint that good a deal as you can find comparable ones for cheaper or at least on good sales ...

There. That's what I'm talking about. We are back on track. I personally have no interest in this ula product. I have a nice quilt for above freezing and if I need colder I'll call Tim first.

I just thought we got sidetracked from the facts and started getting personal based on conjecture.

Heavy and overpriced. Look at what Tim at Enlightened Equipment is doing - pay less for much higher quality materials AND significantly less weight. I could do better walking into any REI store for the price.

Why is ULA making a sub-par sleeping bag?

Michael, the only reason I could see that you'd think this is conjecture is because you're totally ignoring the specs, or thinking the specs are merely opinion. FACT is, if you read the 1st and 3rd post, and further checked out the total weight for the Kelty Cosmic 20, you shouldn't have any reason to complain. Since you seem to be mixing up facts with something else entirely, I'll put them in a nice table for you.

The point is that everyone here (but two) has a negative opinion about a bag not yet seen in person , let alone spent a few nights in it.
Two bags with very similar specs may feel very different once inside.
That can be the cut, the 'stretch baffles" or just the feel of the fabric.
I am not saying that the ULA bag is good or bad for that matter, all I am pointing out is that yes we do have specs but there is more to it.
Franco

Not everyone (but two) had a negative comment. Many of us simply stated the facts that we compared the features of the ULA bag to the entry level Kelty Cosmic Down 20 bag and the features are very similar. As a consumer, that makes it hard for me to justify spending $150 more for the ULA. There's nothing negative about explaining what I look at as a consumer, and that's what many of us were doing.

Franco, it's not the case that the specs on this bag are mediocre. The listed specs are poor. There is more to life than specs, but with cottage manufacturers, we need to be enticed to at least order the item. From what we can reasonably gather now, this is product is well-below average. Yes, that is speculation.

Thansk Dena. There may be features in that bag that justify the extra $105, but the only remotely substantial thing they listed in the specs is stretch baffles. If there's more, they failed to sell it, and as I already said, that's bad business.

Let us not forget that Tarptent and ULA are linked in business these days too. Tarptent is listed under products on the ULA page.
Franco might be slightly biased. I could be wrong, but there I've gone and said it.

yes, and don't forget that China is the largest trading partner for Australia, so that also makes me biased ...
Franco

Connecting TarpTent and thus Franco to bias in this business decision seem to be a bit of a stretch. I almost always like it when you stir the pot, Ken, but this may be a bit of an overreach.

How about we all just accept that this is odd at best, that the specs are poor, and then let the poor sales of this product remind a couple of good companies that there are better ways to innovate?

Really. You took me seriously Franco? I apologize.

And hey I did say might. and that I could be wrong.

Geez.

But the fact that ULA and Tarptent have an arrangement is true. FWIW. In the spirit of full disclosure and all that PC crap.

Edited by kthompson on 09/10/2012 22:29:15 MDT.

If this thing is accurately rated to 20 degrees and weighs 2.5 lbs, then you can objectively conclude, without seeing the bag in person, that it is inferior to other bags of the same or lesser price.
Unless the bag has magic pixie dust in it that causes the user to fall asleep instantly.

Eugene F. Leafty III,

Like people of some "political persuasion", you seem to have trouble with the facts, like to twist reality, and like to state opinion as fact. There, I can be condescending jerk just like you. I'm sorry that I call people when they make baseless allegations. Some people believe in principles and I apologize if this offends you.

Saying that Kelty is better is conjecture or at least personal preference seeing as some might value the construction and several features of the ULA bag. Nobody has any idea of the build quality. So it might be superior. I am glad you at least admit the stretch baffles might be of some interest, real generous of you there. Also, the sharks tail footbox might interest some people.

So on a forum with people spending hundreds of dollars to move from silnylon to cuben, you don't thing for a second that a few differentiating features might be worth $120? Right... Or how about people who buy Nunatak or Katabatic for their features over the much cheaper Enlightened quilts? I guess you don't know much about consumer preferences.

So you can take your graph that conveniently selects just the "facts" you want considered and shove it.

Edited by mpl_35 on 09/10/2012 23:01:50 MDT.

Dena,

I'm counting more than two. It was called a 75 dollare chinese bag and worse. It was then called junk. Then 4 people calling out ULA for putting their names on it.

From now on I think I'll start all my threads in Chaff.

"I'm counting more than two. It was called a 75 dollare chinese bag and worse. It was then called junk. Then 4 people calling out ULA for putting their names on it."

Michael- my response was to Franco, who said everyone BUT two people had been negative. I'm not saying some people didn't go negative (you're right, several did), but there were several people including myself who just compared the specs and made comments based on the specs. One thing that may be different is that with me being very new to the UL philosophy, I am not very familiar with any of the cottage manufacturers and I don't have personal feelings one way or the other about ULA and their products. To me, if the product makes sense, it makes sense. If it doesn't, it doesn't. On this particular bag, I don't see what makes it worth $150 more than a Cosmic Down. Maybe ULA just did a poor job on their marketing and they'll address that and the next time I see an ad for their bag I'll know what makes it better, but right now it looks like it has almost identical specs to the Cosmic Down and so why pay more?

Michael,

Like Justin said, unless their bag has some magic pixie dust, it's not worth it. You mention other companies that charge extra for special materials, but they also would have been lambasted if they hadn't mentioned the use of those special materials, as well they should. You see Michael, even though I've mentioned it several times, if there is something that makes this bag special, it should have been mentioned. They shouldn't advertise it like they're a chinese company selling a chinese bag, which is exactly what they did when they gave unconventional dimensions, didn't provide the fill weight, and didn't even say what type of down they were using. You claim to have a pulse on the consumer, and keep supporting this bag because of completely unsupported possibilities of pixie dust and secret features, yet use examples of companies that openly and proudly advertise their features and quality and willingness to go above and beyond. While you might happily part with an extra $105, I suspect most of us would rather not waste our money on a bag that appears to be cheap explicitly and implicitly.

I don't get it, we can't judge a product based on the materials, weight, price, and specs anymore? maybe this bag has a good personality?