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Carpeted flooring vs hardwood floor question


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I've heard some very good systems in rooms with hardwood floors and area rugs.

In my experience and understanding of room acoustics to date there are very good reasons and evidence that this could even offer superior performance with acoustical options that a typical fully carpeted room doesn't. My next dedicated listening room will not have wall to wall carpeting.

miketn

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It will be different I believe.

The suite of offices where I work were recently painted and recarpeted. I got to listen to the empty offices without carpet, i.e. a concrete floor. It sounded harder and had some echo effect.

As pointed out above, you might make up much of the difference with rugs with padding and some treatments on the walls. The latter might be more important than carpet.

WMcD

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I forgot to mention something that may be a factor in this. There's a basement directly below the floor, so it's not like a concrete floor underneath. So there some resilience to the floor. Would like more opinions, but thanks for the ones I've gotten so far.

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I would think there is even a slight difference between a real wood floor and laminate floors, I would guess real wood floors are slightly better for sound, the laminate it not real wood and much harder and probably does not absorb any sound.

I only say this because one of my favorite places (years ago) to see a concert was called the warehouse, well because it was a old warehouse. It had giant wood beams and old wood beams throughout the whole ceiling and the sound was really good.

Just a guess really, [:o] personally I do not like carpet in the house anyway.

We do like Mike suggested on our laminate floors, rugs, one giant one in the living room and a few in other places.

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It depends.

On the room, size and proportions, angles, ceiling height, the speakers, what's in the room. etc. etc. etc.

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Here's a video of my Heresy in a large room with minimal treatment:

Your 8 foot ceiling might not play nice acoustically, but so long as you respect the dispersion characteristics of the Heresy, I think you can still get satisfactory performance out of them. A very reflective floor would not be my first choice for good sound though.

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I live in a log cabin . . . All oak wood flooring too . . . 8' ceilings . . . Actually, I get the feeling with no carpets and K-horns, Belles, and La Scalas in the HT, that the wood flooring, wood ceiling, and log walls "resonate" with the horns and extends them . . . With no throw carpets or treatments . . . Like you can feel as well as hear the music and sound . . . No bounce or echo . . . Like the wood absorbs and extends the sound waves . . . Or . . . I have really bad sound, and do not know it . . . Please, no one dispel my myth! :-). I vote for wood and add treatments and throws later if you feel you need it. But, then again, I may have the worst sound in the world and have duped myself into believing my whole house has turned into one Phenomenol sounding big Klipsch speaker!

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Gary,

I have been throught two transformations in my listening rooms, carpet to hardwood floors, and concrete to carpet.

My upstairs system went from floor to floor medium pyle shag carpet to 2 1/4 strip solid oak flooring. We have a long haired dog in our home and it was time to replace the carpet. My KG5.5 had always powerful bass in the room, moving to the flooring tightened up the bass with a bit less bass spls. I also moved from drapes to vinyl shades at the same time. I enjoy the sound and don't plan on adding any area rugs. I also enjoy the hard wood flooring, no daily vacuming the clumps of dog hair, better air flow.

I took the carpet from the upstairs then put in my my man cave in the basement. I had been working on getting my basement less reverbant. The carpet did the trick, added some depth in bass frequency, and a more detailed sound with out the reverberation.

So the carpet was a plus in the basement, removed the reverbant nature of the room.

Removal of the carpet to hardwood did give up some bass, but a more detailed bass presentation, so call it an even trade off in the upstairs. Could do some tuning using area rugs, but enjoying the wood flooring right now.

- mike

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I live in a log cabin . . . All oak wood flooring too . . . 8' ceilings . . . Actually, I get the feeling with no carpets and K-horns, Belles, and La Scalas in the HT, that the wood flooring, wood ceiling, and log walls "resonate" with the horns and extends them . . . With no throw carpets or treatments . . . Like you can feel as well as hear the music and sound . . . No bounce or echo . . . Like the wood absorbs and extends the sound waves . . . Or . . . I have really bad sound, and do not know it . . . Please, no one dispel my myth! :-). I vote for wood and add treatments and throws later if you feel you need it. But, then again, I may have the worst sound in the world and have duped myself into believing my whole house has turned into one Phenomenol sounding big Klipsch speaker!

It's no myth [:D]

On the other hand, its your ears and you're the one who has to listen to it. So make it sound however you want. [;)]

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm considering installing a new hardwood floor to replace the carpet. Is this a bad choice regarding acoustics in the room?

Lets call those Hogs!!!!!!

I recently had hardwood laminate (2 years ago at my old home) on a concrete foundation and let me tell you there will be a big jump in output. However, with this output will bring some resonance and echos big time. Now my listening room has completely carpet flooring and I found it quite dull when I first moved in. In time, I started noticing details in vocals and instruments in my regular listening favorites that I could not hear at my old room with solid floors. I wouldnt worry about the solid floors and I dang sure wouldnt choose carpet over any other flooring period. Like mentioned ealier, grab a rug and a few acoustic panels for the walls and you will have great looks AND great sound without all the echo's and bass issues.

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  • 2 years later...

Like several others have mentioned ~ it depends.

 

First, the total area of absorptive material on the room surfaces needs to be taken into consideration. For instance, even inside speaker enclosures, often one surface is untreated (no absorption) while the opposite surface might have heavy absorption. Lighter absorption on both surfaces can achieve the same result.

 

It will also depend on the size of the room, its proportions, and its geometry. An empty cube with all hard & reflective surfaces will create the worst scenario. That being said, I've come across people who actually like what they hear under those conditions using concrete block. "To each his own"

 

For each person its a matter of priorities. Are you a die-hard perfectionist audio aficionado, or is family use and traditional appearance more important? If you're like most, it's probably somewhere in between. The trade off is, no, you'll never have optimum sound performance under those conditions. That doesn't mean it can't sound very excellent.

 

If you like and want hardwood floors, install them. It won't do anything detrimental that can't be compensated for in some way later on.

Edited by artto
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