Hi mike7,
I think my previous replies have dealt with most of the comments you have made in your last post but Iâll add a few more here in the hopes that together they can give you the tools you need to use your own âbest judgementâ, better assess the risk of any purchase, and make an informed decision based on your own âpersonal value equationâ.
In post #13 here about reviews ⌠you will see I agree with you about the âvalueâ of reviews to the degree they make reasonable and useful comments about a manufacturer or retailer ⌠they are just not particularly useful when it comes to assessing a mattress for all the reasons explained in the post.
Post #9 here which I linked previously talks about the different ways to âapproximateâ or âduplicateâ another mattress and some of the difficulties involved. If you want something that is âexactlyâ the same as a PLB model then you would need to buy the PLB or order a mattress that has the exact same layers and components. Anything else will be an âequivalentâ in one way or another and itâs up to you to decide if the benefits of approximating it in one way or another that isnât exactly the same as the PLB is worth the reduced cost. The only way for anyone to know with certainty if the design goal is successful for any specific person is through your own personal experience regardless of any âbest effortsâ of a manufacturer. It may be âperfectâ for 9 out of 10 people but not for the tenth.
Specs are often hard to find out and sometimes they are wrong. Like all the specs on this site ⌠the specs of the PLBâs are my âbest effortsâ and are accurate as far as I know (they came from PLB) so if they are indeed accurate and you use the same design, layers, and components in a DIY mattress then it would be the same yes. I would keep in mind though that only a manufacturer is an âofficialâ source of any specs. You could always call them to verify them for yourself and decide if you trust what they are telling you.
If they tell you that they can âduplicateâ the PLB then itâs because they believe they can for the majority of people. This is part of their âbest effortsâ. With any mattress ⌠âfeelâ is subjective so even though most people would likely agree that an equivalent mattress would be a good approximation (unless it is exactly the same) ⌠there will always be those who perceive it as being different. In some cases people who buy a mattress and then receive the exact same mattress they tested believe itâs different because subjective memory isnât particularly accurate. In some cases you can test mattresses in the morning and then go and test other mattresses elsewhere and if you go back and test the same mattress at the same store it can feel very different because your âsubjectiveâ reference points and circumstances have changed in the hours in between. My goal is to make sure people donât come to believe or have expectations of a âcertaintyâ that doesnât exist.
Only you can answer this and this is where you need to use your own âinformed best judgementâ. Different people would have different answers and all of them are ârightâ for that person. Nobody else can provide you with âenoughâ information to remove all the risk and at the end of the day you will need to make âbest possibleâ final choices (see post #2 here) based on your own decision making process and in an environment that includes some uncertainty. There is no way around this. I can help âinformâ your choices and hopefully reduce some of the uncertainty (or in some cases increase it if someone is overconfident or has unrealistic expectations) but nothing more than that.
The only answer to this is that they would need to decide on what to believe and on the risk they are willing to take for the possibility of success and saving money on the mattress. Again my goal is to inform. If the most important factor is a mattress that is âexactlyâ like the PLB then they should pay the higher price and buy the PLB or a mattress where every single layer and component is exactly the same. To the degree that there are differences in each mattress ⌠the potential that they wonât âfeelâ or perform the same for some people increases. There may be many who donât feel the difference but there may be some who do. This is what I call the âprincess and the peaâ vs the âI can sleep on anythingâ scale. If I was in the âI can sleep on anythingâ end of the scale then itâs not likely that any smaller differences would mean much to me. If I was on the âprincess and the peaâ end of the scale then I would probably buy the PLB. It really depends on the size of your target.
I would not say âyesâ until you were confident that your choice was the best one for you. The first step here is to find out if the mattress he is referring to is a custom build. I donât know what you discussed. Some of their âstandardâ mattresses may feel the same as some of the PLB models to some people because the design is âequivalentâ in one way or another. Most of the purchases in the industry are local because the majority of people (probably over 80%) are not comfortable with buying a mattress they havenât tried so you are certainly not unusual in this way. While this is changing ⌠online sales are still the minority for this very reason.
The irony is that in many cases ⌠the way that consumers actually test a mattress in a showroom for âsubjective comfortâ alone has lower odds of success than random chance alone (see this study). Depending on the âaccuracyâ of your testing (good testing greatly increases the odds of success) ⌠an online choice may even work out better than a mattress you have tested and sometimes has options for making adjustments that can do all the fine tuning that is needed (rather than having to return a mattress to a store that has âlocked you inâ to exchanging for another mattress that may be worse than the first one). If your âtargetâ is a specific mattress then it is much smaller than most people who are simply looking for a mattress that provides them with good PPP ⌠not a mattress that exactly matches one they have tested. Their testing is a guideline in other words ⌠not a âtargetâ that they have to hit the bullseye.
At the end of the day ⌠a good manufacturer or retailer will âdo their bestâ and use their knowledge and experience to help you to the best of their ability so you can end up making the best choice you can. While good information and good testing will put the odds in your favor compared to making a less informed choice ⌠there is still no certainty in a mattress purchase until you have slept on it for 30 days or so and there will always be some choices that for no âfaultâ of anyone donât work out the way that people wanted them to. Thatâs just the nature of things.
Phoenix
