Questions from MN

[phoenix]

Hi carmutt,

If I read your reply correctly, it seems you have a concern that the “softness” of the comfort layers we have been checking out will cause us to have “potential alignment” issues. I realize you can have differential and progressive systems, but I thought the “support” layer was more responsible for the alignment than the comfort layer?

Yes … I would be concerned about alignment with any mattress that used comfort layers that were too thick and soft and make sure you do some careful and objective testing using the testing guidelines. Differential and progressive designs aren’t really important once you are testing mattresses because everything will boil down to PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences).

Primary support is the job of the deeper and firmer support layers. Secondary support and pressure relief are the job of the comfort layers above them. Both work together to produce alignment. You can read a little more about these in post #4 here. Once you are testing though … I would forget about theory and focus strictly on testing for PPP and think in terms of posture/alignment and pressure relief and any other specific preferences that are important along with knowing all the materials in your mattress so that you can make sure there are no weak links in the mattress in terms of durability.

While the Aireloom had a fantastic comfort layer, again the fact that you could not flip to get longer life seems to dissuade me from going this hybrid route since the support still comes from springs.

Unless you are confident that you can find out all the specs of the Aireloom … I probably wouldn’t spend any time testing it because if you like it you may be faced with making a blind choice with no way to identify any weak link in the mattress or know the real quality of the mattress. Price is often not an indication of quality (and in the mainstream market perhaps rarely).

If we like the feel of both, is there one that will likely last longer or provide greater support/comfort over the long haul?

You can read more about all the factors involved in durability in post #4 here but in general terms latex is more durable and will soften more slowly than even good quality polyfoam. In other words it will stay closer to its original specs for longer than other materials.

That’s all the additional questions I saw in quickly reading your revised post (I am reading quickly today and working on catching up to a busy day) but if I missed any let me know

Phoenix