Bought Sharper Image Response Sleep System

Discussions General Mattresses Questions
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Hi Phoenix, et al! I started another message about this earlier this morning, but something must have gone wonky with my Ipad, cuz all of a sudden everything disappeared; so there may be another partial message from me about this. If so, sorry!)

Want to let you know that hubby & I pulled the trigger & purchased a standard king mattress & box spring Response Sleep System by Sharper Image. The product is actually made by Southerland. A lot of what I learned here help me with my decision, to a degree! In the end, I essentially took the info I got here & applied The Goldilocks Principle to the final choice. I purchased from Sleep Center store in San Rafael, CA, which is about 60 miles from where we live. They had a good showroom floor with a lot of mattresses of varying type, so we were able to test several we thought we might like.

We wanted: firm (but not hard) support, relative coolness, relatively low motion transfer. After learning here some of the key differences between memory foam & latex, I thought natural latex would be best choice for me because of environmental sensitivities & asthma. We tested the Pure LatexBLISS, & even if we had loved it, we wouldn’t have purchased it cuz of cost - way out of our already pretty decent budget of Total 5K (but preferred around 3K). I did, however, get 1 of their pillows & I love it!

The Resonse Sleep System is I think what would be called a Hybrid; the base is individually wrapped coils that alternate in height in the shoulder & hip areas. This intermittent height area is supported w/HD foam. Then there are some layers of whatever their HD foam is, with the top layer being a pretty good depth of Talalay latex. I’m sorry I don’t have specs, but the info didn’t arrive when bed did, so I am waiting for it in the mail. The info was, admittedly, somewhat vague, but after laying on it & tossing, bouncing around, we decided to give it a try. Also, they did have one of those large, “cross section” displays that gave us a good idea of what’s inside the mattress.

The store’s policy is that you must sleep on it at least 30 days to give it a fair chance, then, within the next 30 days, you can exchange only for a mattress of equal or greater value. Return cost is responsibility of customer & price depends on travel distance. Exceptions to exchange policy apply. I know there are some stores out there that have better policies. We are not thinking we will need to exchange this mattress set.

We paid $2999 for the Destiny Eastern/standard king. It is the most firm, so was least expensive in that size. Have only slept on it 2 nights. Nice & firm but not at all hard because of the resiliency of latex. Slight motion felt when hubby does leaping, spinning turns in his sleep (

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Hi Cyd,

Thanks for sharing the results of your search … and congratulations on your new mattress :slight_smile:

It would be great to know the specs of your mattress and it would also be helpful for others that are following in your footsteps.

It sounds to me like you did good research and made the choice that was the best fit for your criteria and personal value equation which is the ultimate goal of the site.

I’m looking forward to any feedback you have the chance to share over time.

Phoenix

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Update: first, apologies that I did not/could not provide specs on the Sharper Image mattress set. I am abashed to admit that , even after all of the terrific consumer info & tips, hubby & I made our purchase imupulsively. I saw the list here of good showrooms to “test” mattresses (specifically the Pure Bliss all-latex) in the SF Bay Area, which is where we live, but way out in the “outer limits” of the area. I read customer reviews of Sleep City, the nearest one of which is located in San Rafael; we live 60 miles from there, but my husband’s mom lives in the East Bay, & we stay at her place overnight frequently. So I convinced hubby (who I believe by then was somewhat tired of all my mattress talk!) to go roll on mattresses there one Saturday. I sat on the Bliss & decided it was just too bouncy; I was looking for something that would minimize motion transfer from hubby tossing & turning all night. My husband saw the price & wouldn’t go near it! We then looked at the Serta IComfort & the SI set we ultimately purchased. Hubby liked price of Serta, I liked hybrid aspect of SI set. Plus, though he was embarrassed to jump around on SI hybrid so I could check out motion transfer, I jumped around & asked him if he could feel it; he said “Not really.” Big help!

He said if I liked the SI bed, why not just order it. I hemmed and hawed, telling him I really only came to test. He pushed subject; I caved; we bought! After the 30-day comfort trial period, we are doing a 1-time only exchange, in which we had only 30 days to decide on another set of equal or greater value (2,999.99); we could get cheaper set, of course, but no refund of difference.

The problems we had w/SI set: Him: couldn’t find decent comfort spot; still sleeping too hot (we both do). Me: had to scoot 6-8" from top of bed to find comfort spot; could feel his movements too easily; too hot; buyer’s remorse for getting sucked in by Sharper Image branding of a bed manufactured by Southerland, a U.S. co. for which I could find no good reviews, the price we paid for it, & my concerns about his discomfort.

We understood we couldn’t save our initial $$ output $ would have to either buy cheaper set & lose $$ or buy up in price, since the only other non-coil mattresses we saw there were the Serta or Tempurpedic, which I initially didn’t want. However, the saleswoman did show us a new product by Tempurpedic called Breeze, a cool-touch line designed to address Tempurpedic customer complaints re: sleeping too hot. Of all the so-called “cool gel/touch” mattresses we had checked out up to that day at Sleep City, this is the only one I touched that actually felt really cool to the touch. The saleswoman even told us that if anyone sleeps at all cool, this was not the bed for them. She also told us the price of that floor model: $6200! Hubby & I stepped back as if it were a viper! I guess because I had initially made it very clear to her that I was not interested in memory foam, but rather latex, she didn’t volunteer that there are less expensive models of the Breeze. We moved on to the hybrid, which seemed positively cheap by comparison and, as I said, we bought it.

We decided that for the exchange, we’d bite the bullet & get the Tempurpedic Breeze for it’s (hopefully) cooling feature. We didn’t want to drive 60 miles back to Sleep City, so went to a local Sleep Train store & a lovely young saleswoman named Nikki spent at least an hour with us providing us with info while we tested 2 models of the Breeze; the Supreme (ultra-soft, which was too soft for us) & the Rhapsody, a medium-firm that felt just right for us. BTW: Sleep Train’s exchange policy is much more generous than Sleep City’s. The Rhapsody model in the King we use is $4999, a lot less than the $6200 model we saw at Sleep City.

We went home & I placed the exchange order over the phone with the Sleep City store’s manager. Total additional cost to us with mattress set price, $100 delivery fee (we didn’t pay this fee with first bed, but keep in mind we are probably 100+ miles away from their warehouse site from where they make delivery; so I’ve no problem with this fee), $75 exchange fee & tax = $1825.25. Expensive lesson for us … and one that may continue, as this is our only & final exchange opportunity. We don’t get the new bed unto next week, & if we don’t like it, too bad for us!

I will report back after we’ve slept on new bed & let you know what we think of it. In the meantime, I hope the members who were patient enough to read this long narration of How Not to Buy a Bed will be better listeners to the good advice offered on this site! BTW: other than their somewhat limited exchange policy, I have no complaints with the store or salespeople at Sleep Center.

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Hi Cyd,

I’m sorry to hear about your experiences but I appreciate your post about your experiences because it helps to highlight the importance of all the steps in the buying guide and even though your experiences weren’t ideal … it will certainly help others to avoid the same mistakes and I appreciate you taking the time to share them as openly as you have.

A few comments …

The temperature of a mattress when you touch it will have little to do with its sleeping temperature over the course of the night. There is more about the factors that combine together to affect sleeping temperature in post #2 here. With gel foams the “touch temperature” when you touch it is more about marketing and can be very misleading because when temperatures equalize when you sleep on the mattress the memory foam will become an insulating material.

Tempurpedic is price controlled so it’s not likely you were comparing the same mattress. there would be something to account for the price differences which could be different mattresses or different foundation or adjustable bed included in the price. The price on the Tempurpedic website for a king size Rhapsody Breeze with their basic foundation is $4499 and with the Tempur Ergo base is $6499.

the key is always in making apples to apples comparisons based on all the materials in a mattress, everything that is included in the purchase, and all the other factors that are important parts of your personal value equation.

I hope you have a better experience with your new Tempur Rhapsody Breeze and thanks again for sharing your experiences and insights and I am sure they will be helpful for other members here who read them.

Phoenix

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We want to thank the forum and the contributor for this information. Combining households we needed information to evaluate and choose between these two mattresses. Both are quality and valuable and it really is a personal choice.