As your leading mattress reviews and ratings website, we take our assignment of assigning “stars” to specific mattress models quite seriously. As our Mattress Ratings posts will demonstrate, there is little value (to you) if we consistently rate a mattress as “above-average” simply for the same of assigning a rating. In reality, times change and as competition improves, the ratings of today’s mattress will be affected by the ratings of tomorrow’s mattress. In other words, ratings are a lot like investments, houses, even friends – the value they offer us will change with time (a high-risk investment makes more sense when you are working than when you are retired; a trendy condo is great when you are single than when you are married with four kids; a party-animal friend is a lot more fun when you are in school than when you have to wake up for work).
Upgrades
The Stearns & Foster Berkeley Square was upgraded to 5 Stars in our Mid-Market Mattress Group.
The Simmons Beautyrest Belmont Mattress was upgraded to 4 Stars in our Mid-Market Mattress Group.
These changes highlight the excellent materials and quality that have gone into these fine products when compared to current group averages and average features within the group.
Downgrades
The Sealy Comfort Balance Ellington Mattress was downgraded to 2 Stars in our Value Mattresses Group.
The downgrade reflects an apparent failure to maintain momentum with the rest of this (growing) Peer Group.
In order to maintain relevance to our mattress ratings system, we adopted a program that imitates those used by leading analysts in other fields, one that can be easily modified with time. Our mandate is to stick to these strict ratings and make changes as newer products improve the overall quality within the industry and older products become obsolete (or vice versa if future standards should happen to depreciate).
With this in mind, we recently returned to our growing list of mattress reviews and noted a couple of worthwhile findings.
- The gap between the “best” and “worst” mattresses seems to be narrowing, particularly when it comes to our Value Mattress Peer Group. (Because our ratings system is proprietary, we cannot divulge much aside from the fact that our star ratings are based on a dozen objective measurements about the product (primarily) and the brand (secondarily) and is information available to anyone – i.e. not insider information).
- Even though our mattress ratings might rank a mattress as 4 Stars or 2 Stars, there is little reason to expect dissatisfaction from a 2 Star mattress (a lot of people seem to love the Sealy Posturepedic Grayson mattress, which we rate as 2 Stars) and there is little reason to expect a 4 Star mattress to answer all of your prayers.
So how can our unique mattress ratings help you with your mattress purchase decision? Easily – they can contribute one component to your mattress buying process, the one that outlines whether the mattress compares well or poorly against its peers. With the Sealy Posturepedic Grayson as an example, this mattress might seen as a cheap alternative within the mid-range group which is OK if you make a purchase based on price alone, but its feature list is pretty thin compared to the similarly priced and feature-rich Stearns & Foster within the same group.
Likewise, the Simmons Beautyrest World Class Brathwaite is an excellent option and upon reading our review and discovering its rating, most buyers should take comfort in knowing there are few mid-market mattresses that can beat it. Of course, this is not always true – a Brathwaite owner can end up hating it, particularly if they have not followed the tips and guidelines outlined in our Mattress Buying Guide or our 6 Golden Rules To Buying a Mattress posts.
As always, if you own any of these products and want to have your voice heard, please Leave a Comment below or write to us through our Contact Us page. We love hearing from our site visitors!
Christopher Fitch – Editor
