Hi Maybe54,
Thank you for taking the time to relate your experiences with the different comforts of different materials.
You bring up an excellent point that there are no “standard” definitions or consensus of opinions for firmness ratings (even within people of the same mass/BMI) and different manufacturers (and foam companies) can rate their mattresses very differently than others so a mattress that one manufacturer rates as being a specific firmness could be rated very differently by another manufacturer.
Different people can also have very different perceptions of firmness and softness compared to others as well and a mattress that feels firm for one person can feel like “medium” for someone else or even “soft” for someone else (or vice versa) depending on their body type, sleeping style, physiology, their frame of reference based on what they are used to, and their individual sensitivity and perceptions.
There are also different types of firmness and softness that different people may be sensitive to that can affect how they “rate” a mattress as well (see post #15 here ) so different people can also have very different opinions on how two mattresses compare in terms of firmness and some people may rate one mattress as being firmer than another and someone else may rate them the other way around. And as you stated, a polyfoam piece rated as “medium” can feel quite different from a latex piece rated as “medium”. And Dunlop latex will tend to feel “firmer” than Talalay latex of the same ILD.
This is all relative and very subjective and is as much an art as a science, and in the end the only reliable way to know whether a mattress will be “firm enough” or “soft enough” for you will be based on your own careful testing or your own personal experience. Thank you for sharing yours!
Phoenix