So went to Jamestown mattress today again. Laid on the Plush and the Firm. Didn’t fall in love with either really. I liked the Firm better but I’m scared it just feels that way now but it will be too firm come morning. I don’t know why, it’s the firmest mattress they make so I’m not sure it’s too forgiving. Might consider driving an hour and a half to http://sleepmastermattress.net/ in syracuse per your recommendation but their website is junk and doesn’t even say what they sell as far as spring mattresses go.
My BMI again is 25. Stomach sleeper. I’m on sleep ez Firm talalay 2 inch top, and 2 dunlop 3 inches at extra firm. Looking up the numbers on your site, firm = 39 ILD, and extra firm = 44 ILD in sleep ez. I emailed the guy from Jamestown mattress about the dynasty lineup and he said the following.
Dynasty Firm:
Foam in the quilted panel:
1/2" - 1.8 lb. density - 20 ILD
1" - 1.8 lb. density - 34 ILD
Comfort Layer:
1" - 1.8 lb. density - 35 ILD
Dynasty Plush:
Foam in the quilted panel:
1 1/2" - 1.8 lb. - 20 ILD
Comfort Layer:
1" - 1.8 lb. density - 35 ILD
3/4" - 1.5 lb. density - 33 ILD
So in theory, the firm poly in the comfort layer of the dynasty spring mattress is lower ILD than the Latex Firm talalay i’m sleeping on now…
Can ILD of 35 in a poly feel firmer than a 39 in talalay?
I’m just trying to figure out plush vs firm. Firm felt better but still worried.
Typically how long should I lay on a mattress before my muscles typically can relax into it or do you recommend any other things to attempt to notice when testing a mattress?
Also remember I’m coming from a mattress I laid on for 7 years:
Sealy Beachside
Quilt - Top of Mattress
1 ounce Flame Guard Fiber
1 1/2 x 1/2" Convoluted SuperSoft SealyFoam
1/2" SuperSoft SealyFoam
Update: last night i slept on my Sleep ez and for the first time I was starting to get tingling in the shoulder area suggesting it’s probably too hard. This leans me to plush, but I guess I’m going to drive 1.5 hr to syracuse now to see what they have.
Many mattress manufactures are much better at making mattresses than they are at marketing, but I wouldn’t agree with you that their web site is “junk”. They provide general descriptions of the various lines they produce, but being a manufacturer there are hundreds of options they could produce, so it would be impossible for them to list all of their possible mattress permutations. As you are a distance away, a phone call certainly would be in order before making a trip.
Sleepmaster is a local factory direct manufacturer in Syracuse and Cicero, NY. They manufacture their own line as well as WJ Southard and Bemco mattresses. They make a wide range of all types of mattresses in a wide range of budgets from innersprings to memory foam to latex and use better materials and have better value than the larger manufacturers that are so common in the mainstream industry. Post #9 here will give you an idea of the type of experience you can expect there. I think highly of them and there are some good quality choices available here.
SleepEZ rates their firm Dunlop and Talalay at 37-40 ILD, and their Extra Firm at 44.
Nothing can replace your own testing and the comfort that you feel, as all of the layers of a mattress work together.
Polyfoam ILD (or IFD which is more commonly used in polyfoam) is measured differently than ILD in latex. Both use ILD/IFD at 25% compression (although some manufacturers use 40% ILD in Europe or Asia which would be different again) but with polyfoam it’s measured with a 4" layer which means that the IFD is the force it takes to compress the layer by 1" while latex ILD is measured on a 6" layer so ILD is the force it takes to compress the core by 1.5" (which takes more force). This means that polyfoam would actually be firmer in the same ILD than latex at compressions of exactly 25%.
In addition to this though … ILD is not the most reliable indicator of how soft or firm a layer will feel. Compression modulus is even more important because very few people actually sink into a layer exactly 25% and compression modulus is the rate at which a foam gets firmer as you compress it more. Latex has a higher compression modulus than polyfoam. In addition to this … latex is very “point elastic” which means that a smaller area can compress with less effect on or resistance from the surrounding area than polyfoam. This is much like the difference between pocket coils that act individually and innersprings that have helicals that join the springs together so that the compression of each spring will affect the springs around it which makes the spring stiffer.
In addition to this … latex has a lower hysteresis (how much energy is absorbed) and conversely a higher resilience (how much energy it returns) than polyfoam so there are also factors that can make latex feel firmer depending on how much a specific layer is compressed in a mattress. Because of its unique qualities and ability to take on the shape of the person on it (point elasticity) it can feel softer and firmer at the same time and some will feel it as one or the other depending on what they are more sensitive to, their body type, sleeping position, and how they sink into the mattress.
You may want to read through this short article of five steps to finding a mattress and some testing guidelines where I provide some general guidelines for that.
Wow the info about ILD comparing against Latex vs poly is so interesting.
Also the article about how to test a mattress I wish I woulda read before going to Syracuse to have them take pictures of me on the mattress so I could make my own assessment of how much my stomach dips in or shoulder imprints in.
So I went to Syracuse sleep master mattress today. They seemed very helpful off the bat but immediately steered me towards latex saying that if you are sleeping on SleepEZ you should never mix talalay comfort layer with dunlop core. The woman bashed Talalay pretty bad saying it was inconsistent and didn’t provide enough support. Interestingly through your site I read that talalay might actually be more consistent than dunlop but that’s beside the point. So I laid on their dunlop medium and dunlop firm mattresses. The medium felt great when I laid down on it, but after 10-15 min of really trying to relax I noticed that familiar lower back pain. I didn’t lay on the firm because it felt just too firm for me.
So then I went over to innerspring. She said they have a 30 day comfort guarantee to switch out a mattress for another one in this lineup which was nice but 30 days doesn’t seem like a lot. Jamestown offered the same gaurantee. So between both companies a wash.
So in innersprings they had two lineups. “Cicero” (high density 2.8 foam) and “Liverpool” (1.8 dense foam). Both lineups had a soft and a firm but nothing inbetween.
She had me lay on innerspring and on the latex flat on my back to “test my pressure points visually” to see if I sunk into the mattresses too much or if there was room under my knees (thus not supported). I’m not sure how good this testing is but it was nice for her to offer to help.
The Cicero firm felt good on my lower back but I think it may be too firm for my shoulder when laying on my stomach or over my arm under my pillow. The cicero soft felt good but 15 min in it felt borderline to soft on my lower back. The Liverpool firm felt less firm than the Cicero (2.8 dense) firm which is kind of what I was looking for. Unfortunately though it feels less firm because of possibly the foam density rather than by design. I would prefer to get a better foam in the bed so I’m kinda stuck here. Another thing I wasn’t too happy about was the lack of side reinforcements on the mattress. Jamestown offers a mod to put more support around the edges in case someone sleeps near an edge they don’t droop off.
So overall I liked the Liverpool firm best, then the Cicero Firm, then the Cicero Soft. Oddly the cheaper lower quality mattress felt better to me.
So at that point I was almost ready to consider buying and I asked the woman if she could show me the exact specs of what is in the mattress in terms of layers of foam, how thick they are, what density, and what ILD? I also asked for more information on the coils (she was only able to tell me they were bonnel formation. She said they don’t give out information like ILDs, specific foam densities, and information like what I was requesting anymore because they worry that a mattress competitor will come in and just steal the makeup of the mattress and offer it cheaper. I was disappointed to hear this. She was also noticeably triggered by these specific questions as well as she said “noone really asks about this stuff or goes to great lengths” like I did making me almost feel wrong or anal for asking about it. She did show me a piece of paper which showed the bed makeup but said I couldn’t take a photo of it. The makeup of the bed seemed highly complex with several layers of foams, none of the foam layers had density ratings on them or ILDs.
So my next step was to search your mattress forum to see if i can figure out what’s in them so i can compare them against Jamestown mattress.
Overall I think I liked the Cicero Firm the best because it felt firm support wise but it also felt alittle plush on top allowing my shoulder to get some relief. I think I’m going to go back to jamestown on monday and just give those 2 or 3 mattresses one more try. I keep feeling like the Firm is too firm everywhere I go and the soft/plush is too soft everywhere I go. I just want something in-between that will support my lower back yet not make my arm go numb.
The struggle is real here and I’ve got some serious decision paralysis and fear based on the fact that I’m scared that I buy something that feels comfortable in the store yet after 8 hours the next morning I’m in pain. A lot of your info on your site has helped me tremendously though and for that I’m grateful.
I’m glad you were able to do some more mattress testing.
While photos are nice, don’t discount how you felt while trying out the product, as sometimes what you seen doesn’t line up exactly with what you feel.
I’m glad they were helpful to you. But you are correct about Talalay being more consistent than Dunlop. Both Talalay and Dunlop can provide very supportive and firm comforts, and it is a very popular choice for people to mix Dunlop and Talalay together in a mattress, quite commonly with Dunlop support cores and Talalay on top, so I’m not sure of the reasoning for the statements you were provided.
It may be, as we speculated previously, that you don’t like the point elasticity of latex in the upper comfort layers.
Again, your own impression on how you felt on the product would be the most reliable indicator. Testing to see how your knees touch or not wouldn’t be an indicator of proper support (as you suspected), as there would be more involved with that, including such things as somatotype and level of flexibility.
Both the 2.8 lb and 1.8 lb would be good quality polyfoam in this situation, and remember that density doesn’t have the relationship to hardness or softness of polyfoam like it does with latex mattresses.
Most manufactures have options of some sort of spring clip or extra foam extrusions to assist with edge reinforcement, and if you sleep toward the edge of your mattress this can be a very valuable option to add to a custom mattress.
While the foam is a lower density, it is still a good quality material (2.8 vs. 1.8 polyfoam).
I certainly understand the concern that manufactures have of people “showrooming” their mattresses to go and build their own, but knowing the density of the materials and the type of spring unit wouldn’t be information I would consider “proprietary”, and instead information that as a consumer you’d need to know in order to make an informed decision.
Overall, all the information you need to know is in this article. While the specs that affect the quality and durability of the layers and components are important to know, when you are testing a mattress locally then disclosing “comfort specs” such as ILD/IFD isn’t really necessary or even an important part of transparency because with careful testing your body will tell you much more about whether any specific combination of layers or components or any specific mattress is a good “match” for you in terms of comfort, firmness, and PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and your own Personal preferences) than knowing the ILD/IFD of the individual layers regardless of what the actual numbers may be. In other words, I would consider ILD/IFD information to be a legitimate part of what many manufacturers consider to be “proprietary” information and it would be completely meaningless and only add to the confusion for most consumers anyway.
It does happen at times that site members here get into quite a bit of detail with their questions when visiting mattress companies, and they are mistaken for competitors, which causes some manufacturers to “put up their guard”. But regardless, I’ll always advise to learn of all of the layers within a mattress in order to make an informed buying decision. But ILD/IFD aren’t necessary in a situation such as this.
You may have already read this, but one of the key qualities of a better outlet is the willingness to give you good information on the phone and help you “pre-select” a few mattresses that would be worth testing. Questions like “do you give your customers a list of all the layers in your mattress including the density of any polyfoam or memory foam that is in it?”. “Do you have any latex mattresses that don’t have more than an inch or so of polyfoam above the latex?”. “Can you tell me the layering of any memory foam mattresses you carry that you think may be worth testing?”. How much is … “this” … mattress in queen size mattress only?". Outlets that can and will answer these types of more specific questions cheerfully and without “resistance” and are clearly interested in helping you rather than telling you to “come in and lay on the mattress” before they give you any information are the ones worth visiting. You will get a clear sense of what to expect by asking these types of questions and it will save you watching a lot of eyes roll and “I’m going on a break” comments if you go into the store and start asking questions about materials and construction without an “interview”.
Thanks. Question. Is there any issues with going with a euro top mattress I need to be aware of if I check the components such as foam density and coil specs? I’m going to try this guy today which they claim lands between a firm and plush. http://jamestownmattress.com/super-firm-euro-top-one-sided-dynasty-mattress/
You’d still simply refer to the specifications of the componentry. A Eurotop is simply a construction process where the foam layers are carried out to the edges and the product itself it a bit more squared off. A true Eurotop is put together the same as a traditional tight top mattress, but with the addition of the small extra piece of border panel material (joined to the main border panel with a welting/tape edge) it minimizes the radius found where the quilt panel joins the border panel, creating a bit more of a squared off look and also freeing up the quilt/upholstery layers a bit more along the edges.
A pillowtop is made in a similar fashion, but there is actually a non-woven fabric layer bisecting the foam comfort layers at the level of that welting/tape edge, and if you pull on that welting it will not pull away from the mattress (it will pull away from the mattress on a Eurotop). Pillowtops can be constructed in the knife-edge design or the Eurotop (squared off) design, just to make things a bit more confusing.
In the end, these are all construction processes and the feel and durability will be determined mostly by the quality of componentry.
