TOPIC:

Hi.

I found this website about a week ago. I have been mattress shopping for about three weeks now and think I found one I really like. I've looked at all types, including all talalay and dunlop latex. The feel I am looking for though, I found at Nebraska Furniture Mart. The bed is hand built, the Aireloom Aubrey. It is a firm bed, pocketed coils, some natural and some not so natural components. The Queen set with eucalyptus fiber cover and delivery is about $2600.

I tried a natural latex bed yesterday as well (described above). The feel was ok, but nothing like the Aireloom.

I would like to know if anyone has any feedback on this bed. The gentleman who was helping me owned the Aireloom. He was a large man, about 6'3" and solid, probably about 250+ pounds. He used to be a physical therapist for athletes, I believe, so he was very knowledgable and did show me a cutaway of the bed. The latex is not talalay or dunlop, but the bed felt like a dream.

Any thoughts? It's a lot of money to spend. I was hoping to keep it around $1600, not $2600. But the feel is amazing compared to the competition, and I have tried them all.

I believe this is the link: www.nfm.com/DetailsPage.aspx?productid=35151133

Thanks!

Karen

Hi KareninKC,

The "value" and durability of any mattress can only be known if you know the details of all the layers in the mattress. While PPP of course (Pressure relief, Posture and alignment, and Personal preferences) is also a very important part of value ... knowing the quality of the materials in your mattress is the only way to identify any potential weak links and how long a mattress may maintain the qualities that you bought it for in the first place or its relative value compared to other mattresses that use similar materials. Aireloom is typically is a much more costly choice than other manufacturers that use the same quality and type of materials in their mattress. I would personally never buy a mattress where you don't know exactly what is in it.

I would like to know if anyone has any feedback on this bed. The gentleman who was helping me owned the Aireloom. He was a large man, about 6'3" and solid, probably about 250+ pounds. He used to be a physical therapist for athletes, I believe, so he was very knowledgable and did show me a cutaway of the bed. The latex is not talalay or dunlop, but the bed felt like a dream.

The quality of materials has nothing to do with how a mattress feels or performs because even the lowest quality materials can feel great in a showroom and for some time after that. They just don't last as long. His comment that the latex was neither Talalay nor Dunlop is just factually not correct because all latex used in mattresses is made through either one or the other process (or variations of one or the other).

Any thoughts? It's a lot of money to spend. I was hoping to keep it around $1600, not $2600. But the feel is amazing compared to the competition, and I have tried them all.

I would have a difficult time imagining that you have tried them all. Regardless of this though ... if your personal value equation puts the highest value on "showroom feel" and the quality or value or durability of the components and materials themselves are much less important, then any choice that matches your personal value equation can be a good one. I personally would never make a "blind mattress purchase" because the risks are just too high and no matter how it feels in a showroom or for the first year or two after that ... if you are buying a mattress for this kind of money I would want to know how it would hold up over the years.

As an analogy ... if you are buying a piece of furniture and one is made of particle board with a beautiful veneer and the other is made of solid wood nicely finished ... they can both perform exactly the same functions and may both look great. The difference is that particle board is not as durable and won't last as long and I personally would not pay real wood prices if I knew that what I was buying contained particle board.

If you are buying a mattress and you don't know the specifics of what is in every layer ... the odds are very high that you are paying real wood prices for particle board. Whether the initial showroom comfort and "feel" of a mattress justifies this is of course up to each person to decide but I personally wouldn't consider it when there are so many better options available.

Phoenix

Thank you, Phoenix.

I did also take a road trip on Saturday and visited The Eagles Nest, theeaglesnest.com--a store recommended on this site for the Kansas City area. The bed was nice, but the price tag is even higher. In order to get even close to the feel of the Aireloom, the bed would cost at minimum $1,000.00 more, so about $3600.00, give or take a couple hundred. That's about how much I owe on my car, and although I believe a bed purchase is probably personally more important than a car purchase (depending how you look at it since I am a single mother and need my car to work), I can't see diverting that amount of money away from the needs of my children.

I'll take a second look and see what I can do online to build/purchase one similar to the one Eagles Nest put together.

Thanks so much for your input!

Karen

Hi KarenInKC,

Eagles Rest is certainly not a "recommended" retailer for a purchase. As the the description mentions ...

"they are very high quality but are also much more expensive than other options which use the same type of materials and layering that are offered by many local or online manufacturers."

Savvy Rest is are a good testing ground to get to know the type of layering that works well for you. As you mentioned ... there are online sites that offer the same or similar materials and layering and more options for significantly less than the 20% difference between a local and online retailer or manufacturer that I generally consider to be roughly equivalent value. They are listed in post #21 here .

I would not consider them for a purchase because of their unusually high cost unless they were able to offer a very significant discount. If you do decide to make a purchase elsewhere or online I would let them know that you are doing so to give them a chance to discount their prices to reasonably competitive levels but it's not likely they will do this. If enough people do this they may come to realize in time that their prices are not competitive except for people that don't know about much better value options that are available.

Phoenix

Thanks, Phoenix.

I'm looking at the online retailers you provided in your post.

Karen

OH! By the way, I looked at the paperwork they gave me at Eagles Rest. It doesn't list anything about latex weight or ILD. It just says Dunlop Organic Serenity 10" inch mattress. The combo I finally liked had three layers: Dunlop medium on the bottom, and then two separate layers of Dunlop soft. Then the sales lady put their Holy Lamb Topper on and she suggested a wool mattress cover. I asked about the weight of the latex and they said ILD doesn't really matter.

Obviously, I don't have much to work with as far as comparing online--just Dunlop soft and medium. Any thoughts?

Karen

Hi KareninKC,

The combo I finally liked had three layers: Dunlop medium on the bottom, and then two separate layers of Dunlop soft. Then the sales lady put their Holy Lamb Topper on and she suggested a wool mattress cover. I asked about the weight of the latex and they said ILD doesn't really matter.

She's right that the ILD doesn't matter when you are testing a mattress because with good testing then your body will tell you all you need to know about pressure relief and support/alignment. Of course if you are looking to approximate a mattress through other sources then of course knowing the ILD can make a difference.

The ILD target range of the Savvy Rest layering (soft, medium, and firm) is in post #7 here .

Talalay may also be more likely to feel like the Aireloom than the Dunlop (I would ask to test this if they carry it).

Phoenix