Looking for a good Mattress.

Hello, I stumbled across this site while researching queen sized mattresses and I have to say that reading the articles here has been very informative. That being said, the articles here have raised some serious questions as to whether I’ve been looking at good deals or even the right type of mattresses so far in my search. My main issue is that my wife is 5’3" and only weighs about 100 lbs. and I am 6’1" and weigh about 210 which is a pretty big difference in weight. Regardless, we’ve been able to try a allot of mattresses and narrow down to three favorites: 1) BedBoss Visco Revolution, 2) Tempur-Pedic Contour Rhapsody Breeze, and 3) a Simmons Beautyrest but I can’t recall the exact one. The Bedboss felt best in the store (as far as firmness) but the Tempur-Pedic was much cooler and the Simmons was also slightly cooler than the Bedboss. I’ve also had trouble locating much real review information on Bedboss anywhere online. Stumbling upon this forum has also made me more interested in latex beds but non of the retailers we visited carried those by any brand.

What I would like to learn here is if there is anyone familiar with Bedboss or Tempur-Pedic and if anyone knows of a retailer that sells latex beds near 32502 area code so I can compare?

Hi Dmill,

Just in case you haven’t read it yet … the first place I would start your research is the mattress shopping tutorial here which has all the basic information, steps, and guidelines that can help you make the best possible choice … and know how and why to avoid the worst ones.

Two of the more important links in the tutorial that I would especially make sure you’ve read are post #2 here which has more about the different ways to buy a suitable mattress that is the best “match” for you in terms of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences) that can help you assess and minimize the risks of making a choice that doesn’t turn out as well as you hoped for that are involved in each of them and post #13 here which has more about the most important parts of the “value” of a mattress purchase which can help you make more meaningful comparisons between mattresses in terms of suitability, durability, and value.

The first part of post #2 here has more information about some of the different ways that can help accommodate couples with different needs and preferences or body types.

Tempurpedic is a major brand that is widely available across the country and is very heavily advertised and promoted. For the most part they good quality materials in their mattresses but they are in a much higher budget range than other similar memory foam mattresses that also use good quality materials and are in much lower budget ranges and for most people they wouldn’t be the best value choice. You can read a little more about them in post #10 here. I would tend to avoid the major brands such as Tempurpedic and Simmons (see the guidelines here).

You can read more about Bed Boss and some of the other manufacturers that use the same Chinese foam manufacturer in post #2 here and a forum search on Bed Boss (you can just click the link) will bring up more information and feedback about them as well. Some of their mattresses use lower quality memory foam than I would be comfortable with so I would make sure that you can find out the quality/density of all the layers in any Bed Boss mattress you are considering.

Latex is certainly a high quality material but it is also very different from memory foam. There is more about the differences between them in post #2 here but like any preference choice the best way to know which type of material you tend to prefer will be based on your own personal testing.

The better options or possibilities I’m aware of in the Pensacola area (subject to the quality/value guidelines I linked earlier) are listed in post #365 here and there are several that carry latex mattresses (although I would call them first to make sure that they have latex mattresses on their showroom floor that you can test).

Phoenix

Phoenix, I have to thank you for your quick and informative reply. I haven’t been able to read all of the post you suggested but what I have read I feel has already brought me closer to my goal of finding a excellent mattress that will last a long time for a good price.

I am mainly interested in latex because two of the three beds we liked the most where memory foam but I tend to sleep hot, so much so that I often wake up in the night because of excessive warmth. I also don’t like the feeling of being stuck in a bed and after reading the information on this sites Home page regarding the possibility of memory foam exacerbating those feelings (not too mention not being able to lay on a mattress in a store long enough to test for these things) I thought I may need to explore other materials. The information on the homepage regarding latex made it seem like an Ideal alternative but it is difficult for me to make such a major purchase without having ever seen or tried a latex bed. The list of vendors you linked me to should help me with that last part.

Hi Dmill,

I’m looking forward to hearing about the results of your local testing :).

I’m think the page you are referring to is a different page than the home page because the home page of the site doesn’t have any information about either memory foam or latex.

Phoenix

Thank you again for all the info on this website and taking the time to respond and link me to the threads I needed. Today I took some of the advise present in the articles here and went to check out some of the local stores in my area. While the experience was generally positive, things didn’t go the way I had envisioned at either one of the stores I was able to visit. The first store called Mattress Outlet had good service but the salesman didn’t seem all that knowledgeable on the mattresses or the materials that they were made of. He also began by showing us the big name brands not really paying much attention to the other beds on the floor (which shouldn’t have surprised me, but did). It took me asking a few times to get him to show me a latex bed and the third one he showed us (Jamison Admiral), had my wife and I in agreement that it was the best bed we had tried so far. It felt like the Bed Boss but cooler and with spring similar to a coil spring mattress except without the transfer of movement that the other coil springs we tried had. There where two problems though, the first was the salesman’s knowledge of what the bed was made of, and the second was the stores relationship with the bed’s manufacturer. Sitting on the bed was a example of the layers of foam that the bed was constructed from. From the example, it looked as if the bed only had latex for the top layer and the majority of the bed was some type of poly foam. Puzzled, I ask the sales person if the bed was all latex and he told me it was, even the support layers. I left it at that and didn’t go into asking about foam quality because I didn’t know if I could trust his answers on bed construction any longer ( I hope I didn’t wrongly prejudge him). The next thing he told me was that the bed on the floor was the last of that brand that they had or would be getting because Jamison was changing how they manufacture their latex foams to a lower quality process and would no longer be being offered through Mattress Outlet. This meant that the dusty floor model that had been laid on by who knows how many people was the only one he had or would be getting to sale (what a tease!). We left feeling like we were back at square one.

The next store was The Sleep Center where we also got good service from a friendly sales person. The Sleep Center sales person seemed very knowledgeable about what he was selling but he didn’t have much latex to show me. The only “full latex” bed they had was a Sealy and was very expensive and too firm for us. While he was out of latex, I asked him to show some comparables and we eventually ended up at a Sterns&Foster (by Sealy) Lux Estate Hybrid which felt similar to the Jamison but for a lot more money ( and SleepLikeTheDead doesn’t seem to fond of them). At the end of the day we saw some of the nicest beds of our search but both our favorites had some serious cons to them.

Hi dmill,

You can see the specs of the Jamison Admiral on the Jamison website here (click “mattress unit”. This is a latex polyfoam hybrid (not an all latex mattress) with 6" of blended Talalay latex on top of a 6" 1.8 lb polyfoam core. These are all good quality materials and there are no lower quality materials or weak links in the mattress. There is ore about latex hybrids vs an all latex mattress in post #2 here but with 6" of latex in the upper layers most of what you would “feel” would be the Talalay latex.

Jamison is changing the latex in their mattresses to continuous pour Dunlop made by Mountaintop Foam which is also a high quality material but will feel different than Talalay. There is more about the different types and blends of latex in post #6 here.

I would be cautious about a floor model both because some people may not be particularly comfortable with buying a mattress that others have been lying on and because they don’t normally have a warranty or any exchange options although some people are more comfortable with the “tradeoffs” that come with the much lower price.

I believe you are getting some misinformation here about whether the Sealy you looked at was a “full latex” mattress. Most of the Sealy “latex” mattresses use several inches of lower quality polyfoam in the upper layers of the mattress that are a weak link in their mattresses but you could also check the law tag to see if there is any polyfoam listed in the contents or if there is only latex (which is very doubtful). I would avoid major brand mattresses anyway (see the guidelines here) unless you make sure that you know the specifics of all the layers in the mattress (see this article) and confirm that there are no weak links in the mattress (and it’s very likely that there is). Since they no longer sell the only mattress that I would have considered there I have removed them from the list.

Although you have other options available in the area … now that you know you like the “feel” and performance of Talalay latex it may also be worth including some of the online options that are available to you in your research as well.

Phoenix

I have been checking out online mattress retailers, many of which I found on this website. I have to say that if buying a mattress at a store after laying on it just one time is intimidating, than buying a mattress sight unseen ups that intimidation factor a few notches. To mitigate this, I decided to give Jamison Bedding a call to get some more information about their Admiral Mattress which my wife and I like a lot, but can’t buy because of it no longer being available. What I hoped to gain from the phone call was better info about that mattress’s firmness than was on their website which only described the layers as soft, firm, extra firm, etc. What I found out was that soft means 21ILD, medium means 24ILD, and extra firm means 44ILD as far as Jamison’s description is concerned. The lady I talked too could not give me any info on the poly foam used as the support layer but I already knew it’s weight from your last post. My challenge is now finding a mattress built with firmnesses that will give a similar feel to the Jamison with equal or better quality at a equal or better price. My desire for a memory foam topped bed has now been completely replaced by latex and so my choices look to be all latex, latex over foam, or latex over springs.

Hi Dmill,

It wouldn’t be that difficult to “approximate” the top 6" with two layers of Talalay latex (with a top 3" layer that is in the same ILD range of 21 - 24 and a second 3" layer of 44 ILD) but your challenge will be in deciding what to put underneath it because the density of the polyfoam won’t tell you how firm it is although it would probably be in a firmer range. The Brooklyn Bedding Alexis has a somewhat similar design with two 3" talalay latex layers on top of an 8" polyfoam support core (that is a little higher density than the Jamison) but it has a quilted cover and the Jamison had a stretch knit cover. It would also give you the chance to exchange either of the top two layers if the firmness wasn’t right. A component latex mattress with the same or very similar top layers and 3" - 6" of firmer latex under the top layers would also give you many options to rearrange or exchange a layer and may also be “somewhat similar” as well although once again any difference in the cover would make a difference as well.

Phoenix

This is probably my last question before purchase. I have noticed that many(most) online retailers sell their mattress as components to be assembled by the end user. I have found some information that brings into question the durability of mattresses manufactured in this way. I’ve noticed that it’s common for even expensive mail order mattresses (Naturepedic EOS series) to be shipped using the technique so I am wondering what the expert’s take on the issue might be. Is there a significant hit to the durability and longevity of a mattress who’s internals aren’t tightly bonded to each other and to the rest to the mattress structure?

Hi Dmill,

[quote]This is probably my last question before purchase. I have noticed that many(most) online retailers sell their mattress as components to be assembled by the end user. I have found some information that brings into question the durability of mattresses manufactured in this way. I’ve noticed that it’s common for even expensive mail order mattresses (Naturepedic EOS series) to be shipped using the technique so I am wondering what the expert’s take on the issue might be. Is there a significant hit to the durability and longevity of a mattress who’s internals aren’t tightly bonded to each other and to the rest to the mattress structure?
[/quote]

This is a much more common mattress style with latex mattresses than with other types of mattresses. The simple answer is no … there aren’t any durability issues with this type of design. There is more about the pros and cons of component mattresses vs “finished” mattresses with glued layers in post #2 here and the posts it links to.

Phoenix