New house - well water tests really hard and has high TDS.  Have multiple health issues/sensitivities and want to avoid the high salt conventional water softeners but am wary of the other softener technologies.  

Any advice welcome.  Will also need an under sink kitchen filter for drinking water and have heard mixed reviews about RO. 

Brand recs appreciated, too.  A lot out there to sift through...

thanks

high TDS.

High TDS covers a lot of ground. Have to know what is in the water before you can formulate a plan to deal with it.

but am wary of the other softener technologies.

What other technologies?

Depending on what your "health issues/sensitivities" are, you may be better off having your drinking water brought in.

I have a softener followed by RO+deionization and find it highly effective. Personally, I think there have been too many cases of trace chemicals with unknown effects in drinking water. Why risk it?

I prefer RO systems with a permeate pump. The GE Merlin also looks good.

TDS is 1040 (range shouldn't exceed 500)
hardness is 31 grains/gal

other technologies are no salt softeners -- a few diff kinds out there now

other technologies are no salt softeners -- a few diff kinds out there now

Are you worried about drinking water or the water you bathe and wash in? Aside from scammers, ion exchange is just about the only feasible softening method for single residential use. Next in line is water purification like reverse osmosis for either drinking taps or whole house. Knowing the actual components present in the water will go a long way towards determining what you might want to do to either make your water more functional for washing (and drinking) or protect your pipes, pumps and water heater. The concern is that "TDS" can encompass some really nasty or hazardous components.

TDS is not that far out of line with hardness of 31 grains. I forget the conversion, but each grain of hardness adds a lot of TDS.
A salt conditioner is still the safest, most reliable method of removing hardness. Follow it up with an RO (reverse osmosis) drinking, cooking, ice making system. The RO will remove the salt, and most any other dissolved solids in the water.

any specific brand/company recommendations?

You keep asking questions about specific brands, but you haven't said anything about the health issues and you haven't been willing to shed too much light on the nature of the water in the first place.

You might consider splitting your water into two streams and treating one with an ion-exchange softener, using that water for toilets, showers, etc. The other would get a reverse osmosis system and be used for drinking, dish washing, clothes washing, etc. That would reduce the energy and equipment costs for treating everything by reverse osmosis.

At the very least you want to have a total purification system for the water you actually drink, especially if you don't know what is contained therein. Or have it delivered.

sorry - I could attach water report but not sure how to do that. Overall issues for this well water are:
- sulfate (840) -- high is anything over 250
- sulfur 280
- fluorise (naturally occurring) = 2 (high is 2 or over)
hadrness 31 grains/gal
Total Dissolved Solids 1040 (high is anything over 500)

Not sure what you mean by nature of water other than that it is well water?

I grew up and lived with well water until recently. Our water was from a 700+ foot well and it was about 1550 TDS. We had a dual softener demand setup, meaning there were two actual softeners and when one ran to its limit, 600 gallons and then the unit switched to the other and the first started regenerating. No wasted softening and no chance for hard water to get in the hot water tanks. We had R/O water plumbed to every bathroom and kitchen and used the R/O for anything cooking / drinking wise. The R/O was a 100 gallon a day system with a 20 gallon pressure tank. Even the R/O water was about 50TDS, but much better than what went in, the TDS after the softener was about 1700.

I would do the same setup again if we had that situation, I did look at whole house R/O systems with a storage tank when we built our last home but the cost and complexity really adds up. The down side was we used about 300lbs of salt a month using about 8000 gallons of water, a lot of lugging salt.

While I think that drinking and cooking water should be very pure, I would be hesitant to use RO water for showers/dishwasher/washer unless the need was quite clear.

Not sure what you mean by nature of water other than that it is well water?

I meant everything about it, including the location of the well.

Did the report include nitrates or radioactivity?

Have you consulted a local water treatment professional?