Anybody here an expert or afficionado on those large massage chairs? My wife and I were thinking of getting one (now that I got my fellowship and rolling in cash 
). I see some at Costco in the $4-8k range, but know nothing about which brands are good, what features to look for, etc. Wirecutter is our normal go-to on stuff like this, but the comments on the massage chair article say their research was very superficial.
Just to clarify . . .
Are you asking about the following type of massage chair:
or more like the following that you’d get from Sharper Image:
I don’t have any knowledge of massage chairs. However, if I were going to buy one I would seek out a showroom with lots of models to try. There is one in my area, so perhaps there is one in yours too.
One strange spot that sells massage chairs: HMart. I noticed a display area when I was there this week where you can try them out. I gather some people must hang out there too long, as there were signs about a time limit to lounge there.
Picture 2, like at Sharper Image
Yeah, we have an HMart too. That’s actually what got us interested - one of the boutique shops inside had a bunch of Osaki’s in the $3k-$9k range that were really comfortable. I’d just like to do a lot more research before making a purchase that big. The problem is that my normal research methods (reddit, amazon, wirecutter, google) don’t have enough data to be credible, for lack of a better description.
We have the one below, it’s a more basic model but has enough options that it’s worked for us. My wife bought it on a whim, it was a demo unit and she got it half off. I figured we’d use it for six months and then try to sell it on Craigslist, but we’ve had it for five years now and it gets weekly use.
So I can’t really comment on features that other models have, but I can confirm that Positive Posture makes a decent chair and it’s been perfectly reliable for us.
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