Tempurpedic Supreme Vs Comforpedic Fiji Vs Something completely different

[phoenix]

Hi Maeltne,

Question: the main difference between Tempurpedic Luxe and the Cirrus Luxe should be one of value? Quality should be similar, feel should be similar, etc? I ask because we wasted money on a direct buy membership some years ago; and it looks like we can get the Tempurpedic Luxe through them for ~$2000, and the Cirrus Luxe is also ~$2000.

For the most part yes. Tempurpedic uses good quality materials in most (but not all) of their mattresses which are similar in quality/density and design to the Select Foam models and the main “issue” with them is their “value”. Tempurpedic recently though has been working to remove references to the quality/density of their materials both from their own site and retailer sites across the country and there are some strong indications that the quality/density of some of their materials are being lowered as they do this (and people continue to believe that the materials are the same as they were when they listed them).

It seems to me that it should be possible to have an absolute & relative metrics for softness; i.e. Mattress A is X soft, mattress B is Y soft; X<Y so A is softer. Now whether something is ‘too soft’ or ‘too hard’ for you is completely a matter of preference and very subjective. But as soon as you know that, say 7, is just right for you there could be a list of mattresses with about that softness; or once you know that a specific mattress (say Supreme/Luxe) is just right for you then there could be a list of similarly soft mattresses. I may be a 7, and someone else a 3, so I’d call a 5 mattress too hard and she would call it too soft. I suppose this isn’t really relevant so I’ll stop rambling.

Foam materials themselves are tested for softness with a spec called ILD or IFD but this is not the only spec that determines “softness” and the testing methods are different between different materials. As you can read in post #6 here, the common ILD/IFD measurement also only determines “softness” based on 25% compression of a material and is only relevant for someone who only compresses the material exactly this amount (not more or less). Different materials also have very different response curves that get firmer at different rates. There is also no testing for a mattress as a whole because there are also different types of “softness” and a mattress has different combinations of materials that interact together differently depending on body type and sleeping style. For example layer thickness of certain layers also plays a big role in the perception of softness. While I understand that it seems very logical that something as seemingly simple as softness could have a single measurement (and it would be great if it was possible) … it’s actually a very complex subject that can’t be measured with a single rating system.

For us the Supreme and Fiji felt about the same softness; the Fiji was more springy and had a faster response time; the Supreme had less motion transfer. We had a slight preference for the feel of the Supreme; but there was mention that the Fiji would be ‘cooler’ which was a plus for my wife; but that wasn’t something we could quantify in the store.

Sleeping temperature is also a complex subject and I would be careful about claims of “coolness” … especially if they are based solely on marketing information or some of the properties of the newer gel materials instead of the ability of a mattress to ventilate and control humidity (which is the most important part of regulating temperature).

The challenge though with all of the major brands is that no matter how they “feel” in a showroom that the material quality and value is lower and this information is not generally available (with few exceptions) so there is no way to know the quality or value of what you are buying. You can’t feel the quality / durability of a mattress based on testing or “feel” and lower quality materials will soften and break down much more quickly than higher quality/deusity materials. Worse yet is that the loss of comfort and support and the built in obsolescence that comes from the softening or breakdown of lower quality/density materials is not covered by a warranty.

Phoenix