Hi rand,
Your questions are a little bit too broad to provide more specific or detailed answers but just in case you haven’t read it yet … the first place I would start your research is the tutorial post here which has all the basic information, steps, and guidelines that you will need to make the best possible choices and make meaningful comparisons between mattresses.
Brooklyn Bedding is one of the members here which means that I believe they compete well with the best in the industry. I know them well enough to know that they don’t put “fake” reviews on their website but I don’t pay much attention to mattress reviews anyway (see post #13 here) and the most effective way to assess a mattress or make meaningful comparisons is to look at the specific materials and components in the mattress. A mattress is only as durable as its construction and the type and quality of the materials inside it regardless of which manufacturer’s name is on the label. Comparing materials rather than brands is by far the most effective way of comparing mattresses.
I would need to know which specific mattress you are considering to make any detailed comments (or link to a post that has comments about the specific mattress) but in general they use high quality materials in every budget range and are very good value. You can also read more about the differences between an all latex mattress and a latex hybrid in post #2 here but which one is best for you would also depend on the criteria of your personal value equation that are most important to you.
The Healthy Back mattresses use blended Talalay latex made by Latex International so in terms of quality/durability the materials would compare directly with any other mattress that also used blended Talalay latex (including the Total Latex Mattress) although the quality of a mattress has little to do with how it feels or how suitable the specific mattress is for your body type, sleeping positions, and preferences in terms of PPP because two mattresses that use the same materials can have very different designs and layering and can be very different from each other. They are also very similar to the Pure Latex Bliss blended Talalay latex mattresses which may also be worth considering but in terms of quality/durability, any mattress that uses blended Talalay would be comparable in terms of the quality of materials to any other that used the same material even if they aren’t comparable in terms of PPP or in terms of value (which would depend on the specifics of each mattress, the amount of each material, and the other parts of your personal value equation that may be an important part of any mattress purchase for you.
I don’t have a list of the specific mattresses that are carried by retail stores in any specific area (that would be more than any one person could keep up with) but some phone calls will quickly tell you whether any of the stores on the list carry them. If there aren’t any available locally then you can still test any mattress that used the same type and firmness level of latex in the top few inches (say 3" to 5") of the mattress to give you a better sense of what latex feels like in any particular softness level (ILD) because most of the initial “feel” of a mattress comes from the upper layers of the mattress.
Brooklyn Bedding and Dreamfoam (that makes the Ultimate Dreams) are sister companies but they have different designs and policies. A few of the Ultimate Dreams mattresses have exchangeable comfort layers so you can adjust the firmness of the comfort layer of a mattress both before and after a purchase (like many of the Brooklyn Bedding mattresses) but many of them are “finished” mattresses which don’t have any exchange options after a purchase. If a Dreamfoam mattresses is fulfilled by Amazon then the return policy would be based on Amazon’s return policy and if it was fulfilled by Dreamfoam then the return policy would involve significant shipping charges to return the mattress. In general terms … Dreamfoam carries their lower / mid budget range mattresses and Brooklyn Bedding has their mid range and higher quality and budget mattresses with some overlap in the middle. Brooklyn Bedding also has a more liberal exchange policy (with a longer trial period) on their mattresses with adjustable comfort layers and also has a free return on some of their memory foam mattresses. Because exchange and return policies can vary with each mattress … it’s best to find out the specifics for the actual mattress you are considering and of course this would be a factor in the value of a mattress purchase and your personal value equation.
I’m not sure where you read that I was “luke warm” about their latex mattresses because blended Talalay latex is a very high quality material which I like no matter which manufacturer uses it in their mattresses. You can also read a little more about the benefits of a two sided mattress in post #3 here and the other posts it links to. Their new latex mattresses are a two sided latex/polyfoam hybrid although some of their stores may still have the old two sided versions available which were all latex except for some polyfoam in the quilting of the mattress. Original mattress tends to be much better quality/value than most of the mainstream manufacturers they compete with and they are also transparent about the materials they use in their mattresses so I think they would be well worth considering in any area where they have a store so you can test them in person.
Their Serenity latex mattress has a polyfoam core in the middle and a 3" blended Talalay latex comfort layer on both sides (1" of 19 ILD and 2" of 24 ILD) which is the same material as Brooklyn Bedding and Dreamfoam uses in many of their mattrresses. Post #3 here also compares the old and new versions of their latex mattresses.
If you were outside of the delivery area for one of their stores then there would be a significant shipping charge and if you couldn’t test it in person and because there are no returns or ability to adjust the comfort level of the mattress they would be a much more risky choice if you were too far away to test them in person for PPP. If you didn’t like it there would be no other latex mattresses to exchange for.
Phoenix