Hi once again FavoriteHOMEboy,
This may or may not be “apples to apples” and to know you would first need to confirm with a couple of conversations if the materials are the same. This includes the latex and the other components such as the ticking/quilting. I would exclude the foundation if you are comparing mattresses because you can use either foundation with either mattress and it’s quite likely that they are not exactly the same quality or price. You would then need to assign some kind of “value” to any differences between them.
Next you would need to compare any other differences in options that are offered by each manufacturer (ability to customize before and after purchase, warranties if that is important to you, level of service, differences in design, importance of buying local, and any other differences between the two manufacturers that are important to you.
Next you would need to assign some kind of “value” to the “risk” attached to each outlet and your ability to test a mattress vs buying it online. How important is this to you? How much confidence do you have in going in each direction and what are the costs of a “mistake”.
Add to this any other intangibles of service, quality, or value that are most important to you and you have the components of your “personal value equation”. Because some of these differences can’t be assigned a monetary value … you will need to trust your “educated intuition” about which has better value to YOU.
Again … when you are choosing between good and good … it can be fruitless to ask anyone else which is “better” because only you can know your own definition of “better”. First fill in all the blanks that can be filled in so that your choices include the objective differences as much as possible but there will always be many intangibles that only you can assign “value” to that are also a major part of the decision. For example I have often mentioned a 20% premium as a “good” guideline for the lower risk of a local purchase but the most important part of this is not the 20% … but for each person to recognize that there can be a lower risk and to help them assign a value for themselves. Sometimes choosing between your final choices can be the most difficult part of all.
When I was making my final choices with all the competing variables of my last few remaining choices (and getting down to the last few was difficult enough and took weeks and had little to do with monetary “value” by this point) … the “piece” that tipped the balance was not anything to do with price (they were all great prices and value) or even that one would be 'better" than another (they all seemed great) but because for some unknown reason I decided I wanted a latex quilting in my mattress. This isn’t because a latex quilting is any better in performance than any other design that would work for me … only that I wanted to try it “just because” and this was the final “straw” that tipped the balance towards my final choice.
So in the end … only you can decide which direction to go after filling in as many blanks as you can … and when you are down to this kind of “good vs good” … there is no right or wrong, only preferences. My only recommendation is that you spend the time to talk with the manufacturers or sellers of each of your competing choices for “long enough” to have all your questions answered rather than going by the “commodity specs” alone.
Phoenix