Hi PLH123,
Yes … the specific answers would likely be available but you may need to make some phone calls to find them rather than looking for the information on their websites for some of the reasons that I mentioned earlier.
There is no “standard” definition or consensus of opinions for firmness ratings such as “medium” and different manufacturers can rate their mattresses or materials very differently than others. Whether you are comparing by “word ratings” or by “ILD/IFD” there are still too many other variables involved when you are making a mattress to make specific or meaningful comparisons based only on a single spec. For example … a polyfoam layer that has a compression modulus of 2.5 with an IFD of 20 will feel very different from another polyfoam layer that has the same IFD but a lower compression modulus. Different people can also have very different perceptions of firmness and softness compared to others as well and a mattress or a material that feels firm for one person may feel like “medium” for someone else or even “soft” for someone else 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. Different people can also have very different opinions on how two materials compare in terms of firmness as well because there are different “types” of firmness softness that some people may be more sensitive to than others (see post #15 here). This is all relative to each person’s perceptions and circumstances and the only reliable way to know how firm or soft a material or a mattress feels to you or how it compares to another mattresses or materials (regardless of how firm or soft it may feel for someone else) will be based on your own personal testing or sleeping experience.
Latexco is the main supplier of Radium Talalay latex in the US (outside of some manufacturers that order container loads directly from Radium) and they use the “official” specs that are supplied from Radium but they may “simplify” them or round them off for the sake of simplicity. These simplified numbers may in turn be listed on various manufacturers websites as approximations to fit into general categories so that different materials they have available can be compared more effectively for the sake of simplicity and consumer understanding as well. The more specific numbers would probably be available with some phone calls.
[quote]I can understand why simplicity over thorough accuracy (so as not to confuse customers with information that may or may not be all that helpful in the final analysis) may help sales because many consumers probably only want simple guidance and a general baseline for comparison, but I personally don’t appreciate the practice of providing “technical information” if it isn’t based on actual science.
If Radium is your source, either provide Radium’s actual ILD or don’t provide one at all (unless you have done your own verified independent testing - maybe they have). It is a fundamental principal of honest business practices - don’t make numbers up to foster sales - kinda, sorta close in the general ballpark isn’t nearly good enough if there are actual verified numbers, especially if a seller knows those numbers and is deliberately fudging them for their own benefit. Transparency and honesty are always important qualities in any seller whose business is built on reputation.
There are reasons Radium offers different ILD specs - to offer different firmness levels. I don’t want firm 3" upper layers, I want 3" medium level firmness upper layers. Maybe I won’t be able to tell a clear difference between 28 and somewhere around 32, but I’m confident I can tell a difference between 27 (within the S7 variance range) and 36 (within the S8 variance range). I simply want to know what the actual target of Radium was for a specific piece of Talalay latex. SleepEz medium firmness could actually be a S7 or S8 firm based on their range. S7 28.6 + 1.7 falls within the 30-32 range. S8 33.5 - 3.0 also falls within the 30-32 range. Hopefully, the ILD range specified on their website is based on their own independently verified testing, their ILD range stated is an honest mistake, or I have missed an important detail somewhere.
Again, I don’t want to directly question the integrity of SleepEz because they have a very good reputation from everything I’ve read (and you also believe they are trustworthy), but it seems you deflected my specific questions regarding SleepEz by stating these questions were either generally unimportant or indicative of a lack of knowledge. In all honesty, if a salesman offered that point of view in a store, that would be the end of me wanting to do business with that person. And I’m a good customer to have because not only do I buy (and not return), but I also influence others to buy.[/quote]
The type of specificity that you are looking for would be very unusual and in most cases can cause much more harm than good for the reasons I mentioned in my last reply. The information they provide would be “close enough” in any meaningful way for consumers to make fully informed choices about the suitability, durability, and “value” of a mattress which is the only real goal. While you may be an exception … there are so many variables involved that for most people the type of information you are looking for wouldn’t make a meaningful difference and the research would become so complex that they would just “give up” and revert to buying a mattress based on “marketing stories” rather than more meaningful information even if it isn’t 100% accurate. The mainstream manufacturers already control over 90% of the industry and the smaller manufacturers walk a fine line to maintain a balance between building great quality/value mattresses, being fully transparent to the degree that is meaningful, and still being able to stay in business when all the “influences” in the industry including the tendency of most consumers to buy mattresses for all the wrong reasons and replace legitimate research with advertising and marketing stories that they believe or reviews that they think are meaningful is endemic. I have watched many smaller manufacturers go out of business not because they don’t build better mattresses but because they can’t compete with the advertising that is the biggest influence in consumer purchase decisions. Any manufacturer that primarily caters too specifically to the needs or understanding of a small minority will tend to lose sales from the majority of people that they depend on to stay in business in the first place and the odds of success in an industry that is mostly not transparent at all are already against them.
Criticizing these types of manufacturers that provide the degree of transparency and legitimate and meaningful information that is head and shoulders above 95% of the industry and is so much more than you will find in almost every other area of the industry makes very little sense and only contributes to the problem of the industry in general. If your specific need for information is that much greater and you are in that small a percentile of the population then talking to them on the phone is the most reliable way to find out the more specific information that you need.
Mattresses are a much more subjective experience than electronic products where specs can be more clearly defined and are less variable even between the products of the same manufacturer (although they are still open to interpretation and each person’s “ear” of course). Without being about to “translate” this type of information into a meaningful reference point or without an understanding that some specs by themselves or degrees of specificity have little meaning, and without knowing which ones are more or less important, they have much less value. There is little “value” for example in a speaker that has a frequency response range outside the range of human hearing or perception or where the balance of the frequency response between the speakers and their transition points isn’t natural or is distorted even though the specs may look better. One significant flaw that a listener is sensitive to can overwhelm all the other “great” specs of a speaker. This type of understanding comes with more experience in the industry as a whole and isn’t generally well understood (at least initially) by those that are primarily focused on more technical research.
Buying a sleeping system that you sleep well on for a long period of time is of course everyone’s goal and you may reach it on your first try or it may take several iterations but you will know when you have reached it when you sleep on the mattress because this is the only reliable or meaningful test for your success regardless of which set of “specs” turns out to be best for you.
Phoenix