Hi Cburngo,
A forum search on Ultimate Dreams and Brooklyn Bedding or on mattresses.net (you can just click any of these) will bring up many comments and feedback about both of them. I don’t keep a specific list of which posts contain reviews though.
As you probably know … both of these are members here which means I consider them to be among the best quality and value in the country.
Latex as a material has been in use for over 60 years so the benefits and the durability of the material itself (both Talalay and Dunlop) are well documented regardless of which manufacturer uses it in their mattress. It’s always the construction and materials in a mattress that are the most important and the manufacturer is just the one that puts their label on the finished mattress. Latex is the most durable of the three main types of foam that are used in mattresses (latex, polyfoam, and memory foam).
Of course this doesn’t speak to the specific design or layering that would be most suitable for you in terms of PPP (Pressure relief, Posture and alignment, and Personal preferences) but I would discourage you from using other people’s “comfort reviews” as an indication of how suitable a mattress may be for you (see post #4 here). Each person can have completely different needs and preferences and very different definitions of soft or firm and to decide on a specific mattress it’s always much better to become familiar with a material in your own experience by testing different versions at local manufacturers or retailers. At the very least you would need to have more detailed conversations with each manufacturers you are considering on the phone where you can ask your questions and give them more information about your body type, sleeping style and preferences … as well as the results of your local testing … which can help them to help you make the best possible decisions based on the “averages” of their customers that may be similar similar to you. Learning about the materials in a mattress along with local testing and more detailed conversations on the phone in the case of online manufacturers are the most effective way to make a choice.
Of the three main types of foam … latex is the most breathable and the coolest sleeping so it can be a good choice for people who sleep hot yes. There are also many other factors that determine the temperature regulation of a mattress besides just the upper foam layers though and you can read about them in post #2 here and in post #29 here.
Hopefully you’ve also read post #1 here which along with the information it links to is the most important post on the forum and will give you all the basic information and steps you need to make the best possible decisions. I would personally hesitate to purchase a mattress that used materials that I wasn’t personally familiar with until I had tested them (the materials not necessarily the specific mattress) in person.
Hope this helps.
Phoenix