Hi Jonathan,
The type of materials or mattresses that each person tends to prefer is always a personal preference that can be unique to each person so there is really no “advice” that someone can provide that can predict which types of mattresses or materials that someone else will tend to prefer. There is no better or worse here and just like with any preference choice some people prefer materials that other people don’t like at all. This is always a matter of your own personal testing and experience (and if you’re not sure how you feel about a particular material or mattress then the exchange or refund policy can become a much more important part of the “value” of a mattress purchase).
Having said that … most materials have lower quality and less durable versions and higher quality and more durable versions so it’s always important to make sure that any mattress you are considering use higher quality and more durable versions of the materials that you prefer.
If you prefer a more “in the mattress” feel then you may tend to prefer memory foam which is a much less resilient material than either polyfoam or latex and is very good at motion isolation as well but it also tends to sleep warmer than other types of foam materials.
[quote]The same Atlanta store will give us a credit for the full price we paid for the Latex Bliss (which is very nice of them), but there is only one bed we found there that we “sort of” like. Its called a Naturepedic EOS Organic Mattress and is a multi layered mattress that lets you swap out layers. We tried it with every configuration. The closest we came to liking was (for me) individual coil springs on the bottom and a layer of Talaley latex on the top and (for my wife) two layers of coils. My side feels a little softer then hers, even though I weigh 270’ and she weight, weights, well, much less. She likes it more than the latex, but wishes that it was softer.
If we don’t take that bed, I don’t know if they’ll give us money back. We could be stuck.[/quote]
While there is no way for me to know whether any mattress will be a good “match” for you in terms of PPP or whether you will like how it “feels” … at least the Naturepedic mattresses use good quality materials in their design and there are no “weak links” in any of their mattresses in terms of the quality and durability of their materials. There is also an advantage to being able to swap out layers because you have more options to fine tune the pressure relief and support of a mattress after a purchase if your choice doesn’t turn out to be as suitable as you hoped for. The EOS mattresses generally use latex in the comfort layers but they also have microcoil comfort layers available as well although these are also a more resilient component so you would need to make sure you do some careful testing (with both of you on the mattress and hopefully using the testing guidelines in the tutorial post) to make sure that you like the “feel” of microcoils.
If their softest configuration they have is still too firm for your wife then you would still have the option of adding a softer topper on top of your mattress.
According to their site … they also carry memory foam mattresses which may be worth testing to see if they are a better “match” for your specific needs and preferences than more resilient materials like latex or springs. A memory foam topper that replaces your latex topper may also be worth considering.
I didn’t see an exchange/return policy listed on their site so you would need to ask them about this but in many cases a retailer will only allow one exchange and then outside of any component exchanges that are available to you if you purchase a component mattress like the EOS … if they don’t have a return policy then your next choice would probably be your final one so it would be even more important to make sure you do some very careful testing on any mattress you decide on.
This may be a moot point if there isn’t a refund option available to you but if you do have the chance to start again I would avoid all the major brands such as Simmons or any mattress where you aren’t able to find out the quality and durability of the materials inside it. You can see some examples of the quality/density of the materials inside some of the Beautyrest Black line here and if you compare them to the foam quality/density guidelines here you will see that they use some low quality materials and there are obvious weak links in all of them that would have a very high chance of softening and breaking down or sagging prematurely even for more average weights much less your higher weight range.
There would be little “value” in buying a mattress … even if it’s a good match for you in terms of PPP when it’s new … if it loses the comfort and support that was the reason you purchased it much too quickly relative to the price you paid and foam softening and the loss of comfort and support that goes with it isn’t considered to be a defect that is covered by a warranty even though it’s the reason that most people will need to replace their mattress (see post #174 here)
Phoenix