Hi Seeker,
[quote]BUT my second choice , the Orthopedic Super Premier Pillow Top, $1229 - King, had a better comfort layer. I said to the salesmen, Ed, “it’s too bad I can’t get this soft top feel with the Serenity Latex” and he brought out a polyurethane topper to put on the Serenity Latex. It was great!
Is it wise to use a topper to make the comfort level where I’d like it to be?[/quote]
This can be a good idea if you have a chance to test the combination together. It can be a risky choice if you have to guess about the topper that works best but in this case that wouldn’t be the case. A topper also has the advantage or being replaceable so if it softens or breaks down faster than the comfort layers of the mattress (which it will) they are easy to replace and they can add to the durability of the layers underneath the topper. A topper is similar to a pillowtop except it’s removable and replaceable.
This would really depend on what you considered to be the most important part of a mattress purchase and your own personal value equation.
From a raw materials point of view … you will generally find that the margin of all the mattresses made by the same manufacturer will be very similar except higher budget mattresses tend to have a little higher margin so from a “raw materials” point of view it would probably be worth it yes although the lower budget mattress may have a little bit better “material value”.
This is only one part of the “value” of a mattress purchase however and the suitability of a mattress in terms of PPP is just as important if not more so. No matter what the material quality or value of a mattress if it’s not the best “match” for you then the “value” over the years that comes from a higher or lower quality of sleep is a significant part of the “value” of the purchase. I would also consider that the motion separation of the Serenity latex would probably be better than the Orthopedic Premier super pillow top which has an innerspring with helicals which will probably be less motion separating.
More than this you would need to find out the specific details of the layers in the Orthopedic Premier super pillow top to make a meaningful comparison between the two. You would especially need to know the density and thickness of all the polyfoam layers from top to bottom that were above the innerspring. It will likely be a combination of 1.5 lb polyfoam along with higher density polyfoam (probably 2.5 lb plus) which would be less durable than the latex in the Serenity (even though it would be higher quality than most pillowtop mattresses you will find in the larger brands). With any soft polyfoam comfort layers that thick you can expect to see some impressions and softening over time even though it would be less than the norm with most mainstream mattresses and would most likely be less than the warranty exclusions (you can see a few more comments about this in post #4 here). If the Super Pillowtop is “on the edge” of being too soft for you then even a relatively small amount of foam softening can put you “over the edge” of the range of comfort and support that is inside your ideal range. The latex will stay closer to its comfort and support level over the years in other words which can also help with the quality of your sleep.
Overall I would generally suggest buying the best quality materials you can comfortably afford because when you look back on a mattress purchase a decade or more from now you will remember much more about how well you slept and how long the mattress lasted than you will how much you paid for it although of course the purchase price will always be an important part of any purchase decision.
Phoenix