One of the three did end up being kind of scummy. I’ve never seen such horrible Yelp reviews. One of the others was fine but they only offered Temperpedic which is a horribly overpriced brand especially given that there are equivalent pure foam mattresses out there.
I went with the large local store which has been in town for decades and has great reputation and dozens of universally positive reviews. I got something one step down from the highest end which has a coil system with a latex and foam top. Mattresses come in hard, medium and plush because I guess that “soft” has a bad sound to it. I got a plush model.
it seems that the US is one of the few (?) countries in the world with (somewhat mainstream) mattrasses in the U$1, 2 or 3,000.- price region.
I live in what I would describe a 2nd world country where a “good” mattrass costs in between $100 and $200,- … so basically 1/10th of what people pay for mattresses in the States.
Which leads me to the following thought-experiment:
Unless the USA ranks higher in “best sleeping countries”, you guys are getting ripped of (big-data analysis needed) … right?
b/c if people sleep equally well in countries with “lesser” mattrasses, then why spend 10 times the price for one …
I think the high prices for mattresses in the USA is mostly a function of “since there are people willing to pay top dollar for them, why charge them any less” … and those (ridiculous to me) prices allow for a huge marketing machine that keeps drumming “your sleep should be of that much value to you … don’t settle for anything less than the top$$$$ models” …
again, at this stage this is a hypothesis … but I’d love to see some aggregated numbers that support that large populations sleeping on expensive mattresses sleep better than populations on less expensive ones …
We kind ended up with a self made hybrid design.
We hated every single traditional mattress out there since they all eventually developed a ‘sag’ or ‘dip’. So the solution of a sleep number sounded great. And while it did prevent a sag developing it never felt like a lower setting was making it softer, just making you sink into it more.
So we got a tempurpedic memory foam mattress topper for it.
Problem solved. Now a very comfortable plush feel that never gets a dip. And if the topper eventually loses its cushiness we’ll just replace that for a couple hundred.