Hi mermla,
Simmons doesn’t release the foam specs of their mattresses and while eventually they tend to leak out (sometimes correctly and sometimes incorrectly) … each time they change their model lineup and the proprietary names of the components and materials they use they may or may not also change suppliers and foam quality so there is really no way to know for certain exactly what is in their mattresses without having specific and verified information from the manufacturer themselves. Without this information there is really no way to make a meaningful assessment of their mattresses or make meaningful comparisons with other mattresses other than their subjective “feel” which has nothing to do with the quality or durability of the materials they use.
The only way to know or assess any mattress is with confirmed and reliable information about what is in them and if a manufacturer doesn’t want the public to know there is really no way to know if any information that becomes available is accurate or how long it will stay accurate.
For example Simmons used to call their memory foam NXG (which was 3.5 lbs or low quality) and NXG advanced (which was 5.5 lbs and high quality) but now their new lineup uses their new Aircool terminology and the memory foam may or may not be the same. They have also never listed the quality of their polyfoam although it is usually 1.5 lbs or less with few exceptions. As you can see … the Noelle here uses 3.5" of foam that is a complete unknown in terms of its quality or durability.
Tempurpedic also doesn’t release any information about the Tempur Float material. You can see some speculation about it here and it’s probably a good quality HR polyfoam but once again without knowing the specifics there is no way to make any meaningful assessments about the mattress other than the fact that their history indicates that they carry a very high price relative to other similar mattresses that use the same or better quality materials.
There are even some strong indications that the quality of some of the materials in the Tempurpedic mattresses has been recently reduced but since they are removing references to the density of their foams all over the internet (and most of the references that are still there use the old specs that used to be fairly widely available) there is no way to know this for certain either except through “alternative” means.
For example the Tempurpedic simplicity line uses very poor quality/density sub 3 lb memory foam over a polyfoam base layer that is probably in the range of 1.5 to 1.8 lbs and yet they carry a price that is similar to memory foam mattresses that use high quality memory foam and polyfoam materials in all the layers that are made by other manufacturers. The quality of these is so low that I wouldn’t even consider them as a reasonable option based on quality alone regardless of the label on the mattress.
To the degree that you don’t know what is in a mattress you are really making a blind purchase and while they may be comfortable and supportive in the showroom … there is no way to really know or even guess how long they will stay that way.
It’s a little like comparing two pieces of furniture one which is made of good quality real wood and the other that is made of cheaper particle board with a nice veneer. They will both perform exactly the same functions when they are new but one is much lower quality and less durable and certainly won’t last very long while the other one may last for generations.
Phoenix