Hi SuperJ,
[quote]I wonder if your point about sinking thru the top layer on the Matrand is what going on.
I weigh 200 lbs and my wife about 160. The mattress feels soft enough but it kind of bottoms or firms up when compressed too soon IMHO. Maybe I just need more thickness for my weight.[/quote]
It’s certainly possible.
Different people can also have very different perceptions of firmness and softness compared to others as well and a mattress that feels firm for one person can feel like “medium” for someone else or even “soft” for someone else (or vice versa) depending on their body type, sleeping style, physiology, their frame of reference based on what they are used to, and their individual sensitivity and perceptions. There are also different types of firmness and softness that different people may be sensitive to that can affect how they “rate” a mattress as well (see post #15 here) so different people can have very different opinions on how two mattresses compare in terms of firmness and some people may rate one mattress as being firmer than another and someone else may rate them the other way around. This is all relative and very subjective and is as much an art as a science.
The “bottom line” is the only way to know how firm/soft a mattress feels for any specific person (regardless of how firm it may feel for someone else) or “how” it feels soft or firm will be based on their own personal experience.
“Support” is also often misunderstood and many people believe incorrectly that “firmer is better” or “more supportive” or that one type of support system is “better” than another when the real goal of a “supportive” mattress is to keep the spine in good alignment and this requires the type of contouring support that allows some parts of the body to sink in more and some parts of the body to sink in less and this will vary on an individual basis. There is more about primary or “deep” support and secondary or “surface” support and their relationship to firmness and pressure relief and the “roles” of different layers in a mattress in post #2 here and in post #4 here that may also be helpful in clarifying the difference between “support/alignment” and “comfort/pressure relief” and “feel” and how they interact together.
A mattress on an actual box spring (that has springs inside it that flex) will tend to have a softer and more “bottomless” feel and can provide more “contouring” secondary support (especially if the mattress is relatively thin) than the same mattress that is on a solid non flexing foundation.
Phoenix