Hi Dorq,
Thanks for sharing your comments and experience with your Tuft & Needle … I appreciate it.
I’m sorry to hear that your mattress didn’t work out as well as you hoped for but I’m glad that you had the foresight to try an online mattress that has a good return policy and had good options available to you if your choice didn’t turn out as well as you hoped for.
As you probably know from your reading here … there is no “standard” definition or consensus of opinion for firmness ratings and different manufacturers 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 or even what they would call “balanced” compared to others as well and a mattress that is firm for one can 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. This is all relative and subjective and is as much an art as a science. 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). In other words your own personal experience is the only reliable way to know how firm or soft or “balanced” any mattress feels to you regardless of how firm or soft or “balanced” it may feel to someone else or how anyone else may “rate” it.
Now that you are back in the market I hope you’ve had the chance to read the mattress shopping tutorial here which has all the basic information, steps, and guidelines that you will need to make the best possible choice … and perhaps more importantly know how and why to avoid the worst ones.
If you are still attracted to the idea of online companies that offer a “one choice fits all” mattress then there is more information about many of them in post #3 here and the posts it links to.
The tutorial also includes several links to lists of the better online options I’m aware of as well (in the optional online step) and if you let me know your city or zip code I’d also be happy to let you know about the better options or “possibilities” I’m aware of in your area as well.
Phoenix