Hi Twilee,
The major brands such as Sealy/Stearns & Foster, Simmons, and Serta all tend to use lower quality and less durable materials in their mattresses than most of their smaller competitors. Relative to the price you pay, these lower quality materials will tend to soften or break down prematurely, which is why I would generally suggest avoiding all of them completely along with the major retailers that focus exclusively on these brands. Also, I recommend avoiding any mattress where you aren’t able to find out the type and quality/durability of the materials inside it, regardless of how it feels in the showroom (see the guidelines here along with post #3 here and post #12 here and post #404 here).
Focus on the simple steps I listed in my previous reply (from the mattress shopping tutorial), and always make sure that you find out the information listed here so you can compare the quality of the materials and materials in any mattress you are considering against the durability guidelines.
So that’s already good progress – you know you have an affinity for a “more traditional” innerspring product versus something using memory foam.
[quote]We are replacing our 11 year old Beutyrest princeton park pillow top but the scooped out place where I used to sleep isn’t comfy any more). We were going to replace it with the same thing, but all the names changed, and I haven’t been able to find which beutyrests are made of the better quality materials. (If you know, feel free to tell me…)
I called Simmons and they were helpful but said all of the model classes have some better quality model names, but couldn’t tell me what types of foams or densities etc. are. [/quote]
I would be very cautious about brand shopping in general (and for the reasons I listed above regarding Simmons) because you are buying a specific mattress not the brand, and the brand label tells you nothing about the quality of materials being used, nor do brands tend to “carry over” models from year to year, and even if they did it would be no guarantee of the durability or quality of the products, as specifications can change to produce similar “showroom feels” but can result in vastly shorter actual comfort lives. There is more about the risks of brand shopping in post #5 here and post #12 here.
Mattress surgery!
Phoenix