Narrowing it down

I appreciate your site and the time you take to answer people’s questions. I have learned a lot reading through the posts and feel like I am almost ready to make a decision but I was having a hard time making that final choice.

My wife and I are both 5’8". I am around 196 pounds. She isn’t divulging her weight though we tend to like similar feeling beds. We are both side sleepers. Our current bed is a 14 year old king size King Coil plush mattress (not sure the coil count though it is heavy). As you would expect it started forming impression pretty quickly but lasted probably 7 years before it was unbearable. At that time we couldn’t afford a new one so we put 2" cheap memory foam topper (from Sam’s Club) on it at felt pretty good for a another couple of years. We both liked the soft feel of the memory foam on top. However, we slept on a “high quality” memory foam bed at a friends once and hated it (slept hot, sunk in, and we both woke up terrible back pains). I am sensitive to heat but given that the current memory foam topper on our bed was very soft and only two inches I don’t think I was “in the bed” enough to get that hot. Currently, our bed has no support and so we toss and turn (and my wife has hip and shoulder pain). I like the idea of latex for its durability and support.

We have tried several local places to try and get a feel of latex. One (Lebeda) had a 8" bamboo mattress with a 6" talalay core (probably medium 29-32 - the salesperson wasn’t sure) with probably 1 inch of polyfoam on each side. He put the bed on the lower part of a bunk bed (it was a twin) with no additional foundation other than metal slats. It felt okay. The salesman then put on one of the older 3" 19 ILD rejuvenite toppers. The softness felt good to both of us though I thought the 3" provided a little too much sinking in and my wife thought the topper was ‘too’ bouncy. They also had some 4" latex (maybe medium firmness) over coils beds that I didn’t really like. They didn’t seem either supportive or soft. This experience, plus the fact that I liked the 2" topper on our current bed, led me to think that I would prefer a soft feeling on the top but that I don’t wan’t to sink in too far.

We then went over to another store (Midwest Mattress). The had two hybrid bamboo beds (10" and 11") with about 1.5" of polyfoam over 5+1 or 5+2 inches of talalay latex over 2 inches of lower quality foam. They told me that the 1 and 2 inches were 20 ILD. The 5 inches was 28 ILD and the base stabilizer was 30 ILD. Not sure but they may have been on general box spring. These also felt okay to me and my wife (she preferred the 5+2) though again I think we were mostly feeling the 1.5" polyfoam. I think either of these could be okay with a soft 2 inch topper (at least for the first few months until the polyfoam compressed which is what I am trying to avoid).

I think one thing my wife liked about these beds was that they were “finished” and, therefore, may not have have been as ‘bouncy’ as the topper we tried. In the past we have laid on a custom bed with a more flexible cover and she thought it was too bouncy and didn’t like it though she thought the comfort was okay (I am not sure the ILD’s though it was probably the standard S, M, F talalay from SavvyRest - you could only try the floor model as is). So, I think she is okay with latex but isn’t thrilled about a DYI, in general, and wants it have less bounce than the SavvyRest or 3" topper we tried. I also like the finished idea but am worried about not be able to exchange the comfort layer if it isn’t correct or if it wears out quicker than then rest of the mattress.

So, these considerations are leading me to consider two alternatives (though I am open to others):

  1. 10" total latex from Brooklyn Bedding. This seems like a great possible compromise as it has a more solid enclosed base and an exchangeable top layer. This could meet her need for a ‘finished’ design while still allowing us to change the comfort of the top layer which we are not sure about yet. Chuck (who was very nice and a lot of help) suggested that this was part of the thinking in their design. He suggested a 7 which would be 3" 24 over 3" 32 over 3" 36. The core would be the 32 and 36 glued together to make 6". On the website it shows the choices of 32 or 36 but he said they can customize it to fine tune it a little more. Another benefit of this design seems to be that we can try out sleeping on an all latex bed but if we don’t like having the top layer be latex or to be 3" deep (since we currently like the 2" memory foam we have) we could still (a) change out the layer for a memory foam layer (as they sell those), (b) add a 2" memory foam topper or (c) add a 2" pure bliss topper in slow response. For options B and C we could have the option to adjust the 3" latex layer to be a little more supportive (i.e., 28 ILD) so that comfort layers are not too deep. One concern I have though is whether the enclosed base layer would be as ‘solid’ as the beds we tried. I was also wondering if the quilting layer would compress too much since it has some polyfoam in it? Chuck said the 1" quilting was made up of about .25 fabric, .25 wool, and .5 polyfoam. Since it less that 1" of foam I expected it would be okay and online people seem to like the feel (though most reviews seem to be about other models which might have as much as 1.5 of the foam). I was also wondering if the pillowtop layer would move to much. When the latex layers are together they are ‘pretty’ sticky but this bed has a layer of fabric between them which might allow it to move…

  2. Option 2 is a fully ‘finished’ mattress from Arizona Premium Mattress Company (Eastern King Ultra Plush Talalay Latex Set,). It has a 6" latex core (maybe 33 ILD) and a 2" (22ILD). It has the advantage of having compressed cotton and wool on both sides. I would think that this would be pretty similar to the ones we tried (though maybe a little firmer due to the wool?). We could then try it out and always add a 2" topper of memory foam or a 2" pure bliss topper. However, then we would have 5" (2" topper plus 1" wool plus 2" 22 ILD layer) of pressure relief and that might be too much for alignment. My other concern is that we have never tried the mattress and there is no layer exchanges. In particular. all of the testing beds had foam as the quilting and so I am not sure if we would like the wool. Based on feedback on the site I think I would like the wool and it is better “quality” but not having laid on it I can’t be sure we would like it better or not. Finally, the mattress is heavy. However, while it would cost almost $300 to ship it would still be cheaper than most competitors coming in at just under $2,000 before the 5% discount including shipping and a wood foundation (by comparison the 10" total latex above would cost almost $2,100 before the 5% discount with the $1799 mattress and a separate $299 wood foundation - so they are pretty similar in terms of cost).

I am probably over thinking the whole decision, but feel free to let me know you thought about my deliberations.

Hi David888,

I think your basic thinking and understanding about the pros and cons of various designs is good and you certainly have enough understanding to make a choice that is best for you especially when you are working with and getting good information from BB as well.

Beyond this though, I agree that you are probably crossing the line into overthinking the small details. I could probably spend a few hours finding and linking you to more and more detailed information about everything you have mentioned that went into even more detail yet but I think it would do more harm than good anyway.

In general I don’t consider a polyfoam quilting layer “in the range” of an inch or so to be a durability issue and it is there to help with surface feel and lower the surface resilience a little and help with the type of resilience / springiness / bounciness that some people don’t like as much. Even 1.5" that is quilted and pre-compressed is not an issue unless there is more soft or lower density polyfoam layers underneath it in which case the combination could easily become a weak link. You can read a little more about quilting layers in this article and in post #2 here and in post #36 here (about wool quilting).

Too little information can be an issue and generally leads to poor quality/value or “blind” choices but too much information can also lead to a focus on technical details that probably wouldn’t make a significant difference for most people and can lead to overanalysis and paralysis without the context to really know what the difference would mean in your personal experience in “real life” anyway.

You have narrowed things down to some good choices for the “right” reasons IMO and I would make your “best” choices based on which of the “tradeoffs” and which of the objective, subjective, and even intangible differences were the most important parts of your personal value equation. This is especially true when you have good options available after a purchase that you can use your personal experience to guide you and decide on any changes or “fine tuning” that may be necessary instead of “theory at a distance” which is much too difficult to “feel”.

Phoenix