Hello, I have been reading up on here and on the web and I have narrowed it down to these two choices.
I am local to Shovlin and I have gone to the showroom to sit/lay on their Nirvana and it is very nice but the price for a King is $3,499 which includes the base. They do not include their pillow top but offer a 50% discount if you want the pillow top, we have an inner spring pillow top mattress from Shovlin and the pillow top is nice but not sure if it is necessary for the Nirvana. The Nirvana uses one 6" layer of Talalay (not sure if it is blended or not) and a 6" HD/Cloud foam. The latex ILD is always the same and they change the ILD of the foam support layers, so for soft/med/firm only the base layer is changed. I am not sure if I love this approach or not and would like to get some opinions on this.
BB Aloe Alexis is a very close match to the Shovlin design except they use two removable 3" comfort layers of blended talalay, so I can get two different firmness and switch them as need or even exchange one as needed vs the Nirvana which would require a full exchange of bed (since Shovlin is local to me this isn’t a huge problem or concern). BB also uses a HD foam base layer (7") but I think this layer never changes for the ILD, but I am not positive. Finally, the price of the Aloe Alexis is $1699 and they currently have $100 off 1299 or more but I have to buy a base which is in the mid $300’s from BB.
So I am stuck in a typical buy from a local or buy online scenario. Local is much more expensive but I know and have bought beds from them before. BB is online and offers the same warranty and they have their 120 day policy which is great as long as they own up to it. Price is a huge factor as well, for what seems to be the same design bed (HD foam layer and 6" of talalay (possibly blended) so I think comparing the costs of these two beds is very realistic.
So I guess I am just looking for other peoples experiences (if any) with these two beds and this mattress construction (HD Foam and Latex). One benefit of the BB is that I can change out a comfort layer either now or even a few years down the road and cost would be much cheaper than having the design of the nirvana.
I am a side sleeper and I have back issues, I have had surgery once before and I currently wake up with some back pain so I am looking for a mattress to help with this and I think Latex is the way to go. My wife is also a side sleeper but she used to sleep on her stomach until that causes back pain for her as well. So I think we need a medium to softer mattress for our sleep styles.
I doubt that you will find someone else that has slept on both of them (including the specific firmness choices you would be making) so it’s unlikely that other people’s experiences would benefit you much. Even if they had experience sleeping on both their body type, sleeping positions, personal preferences, or their individual criteria may be very different from your own and their experiences on a mattress in terms of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences) may be very different from yours as well. Using other people’s experience can be very risky when it comes to choosing which mattress is “best for you”.
You can see some comments about the Nirvana design in post #7 here. All the materials are high quality and there are no weak links in the design so from a quality perspective the design is great. From a suitability perspective it uses a more unusual design approach that has firmer materials on top and then changes the firmness of the deeper layers to add additional “give” underneath the latex. This would be similar to a “dominating layer” (see post #33 here and the posts it links to) and would also be similar in a way to say a 6" firmer latex mattress that uses a box spring underneath it to provide some extra give under pressure points. These types of designs create a firmer sleeping surface with a much more “on the mattress” feel with some additional give and softness underneath the firmer layers. A forum search on Shovlin Nirvana (you can just click the link) will bring up more information and feedback from some of the forum members here about it as well.
The Aloe Alexis on the other hand has a more traditional approach that uses progressively softer layers as you go from the bottom to the top so you would have a deeper pressure relieving cradle and softer feel on top of the mattress and a more “in the mattress” feel in most cases. Differences in design such as these aren’t “better or worse” and are more of a preference choice where some may prefer one type of mattress and others would prefer the other. A forum search on Alexis (you can just click the link) will also bring up much more information and feedback about it as well.
In terms of comparing them I would start by reading post #13 here which has more information about the most important parts of the “value” of a mattress purchase. The priorities are always suitability (how well you will sleep on the mattress), followed by durability (how long you will sleep well) followed by all the other parts of a mattress purchase that may be important to you that you can use to make meaningful comparisons based on the parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you.
In terms of suitability the most effective way to predict your sleeping experience on a mattress in terms of PPP is with careful and objective testing. While this isn’t always 100% accurate of course … if you test carefully it is the most effective and reliable approach. If you can’t test a mattress in person then a more detailed conversation on the phone with an online retailer or manufacturer in combination with local testing on mattresses that have some similarities to what you are considering is the “next best” approach. They can use your experiences and the “averages” of their customers that are similar to you to help you make a choice is the “next best” approach (see mattress firmness/comfort levels in post #2 here). The better the information that you provide them the more you will help them to help you make the best possible choice out of the options they have available.
In terms of durability they both use high quality materials and there are no weak links in either of them so this would be a wash.
If you are confident about the suitability of your finalists in terms of PPP (or the options you have to fine tune it after a purchase to make it suitable) and they both don’t have any weak links in their design or materials relative to your budget range (which they don’t) and there are no clear winners between then then you are down to a choice between “good and good” and your final choice (see post #2 here) would really come down to “best judgement” based on all the parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you and your odds of making a successful purchase that you will sleep well on for a long time and that you consider to be good value are very high either way.