Carpet v wood/laminate

Posted by: John3 on 23 March 2002

Wife wants to change the lounge (hifi room) from carpet to wood/laminate flooring. If I give in to this how is it going to change the sound?

Posted on: 24 March 2002 by Raphael

Hi John(3)
What is your sound like now? If you like it as it is then I would suggest that wood laminate will change things quite a bit. You could take care of any problems caused by the wood floor using rugs and maybe even soft furnishing on certain walls - but then do you really want to put down wooden flooring only to cover it up with rugs!
Sound reflection is a bit of a black art (just like aerial design) and I would suggest that you experiment a lot.
Good luck
Raphael

Posted on: 24 March 2002 by Mick P

John

My son has my old system of mainly Arcam / Pioneer / Castle Chester speakers which sounded quite good in his lounge when it was wall to wall carpet.

His wife fancied a wood laminate floof which he installed over Christmas. The laminate goes from their hall, into the lounge and then into the dining room.

The house has an echoe effect (which they have got used to)but it did have an adverse effect on the hifi. Made it more brilliant and sharp.

I would say that you may prefer the new sound because it was not better or worse, just different.

This is one case where you are going to have to keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best.

Regards

Mick

Posted on: 24 March 2002 by ebirah

I'm going to cut a very long story short:

I changed from carpet to maple flooring. The room instantly becaue live, live, live. Echoes everywhere. I had to sell my SBLs, buy new speakers, get rid of all my Mana wallshelves and replace them with racks (new speakers wouldnt go against the wall so room geometry had to change). All of this p*****g around reawakened my interest in hi-fi and I ended up changing everything except my 250, LP12 (PSU did change) and ARO. Marks my words, it can be a very expensive business. It would have been cheaper to put the carpets back (the system is much better now than it was though!).

Listen dude, carpets are back in; try any Elle Decoration, Wallpaper, Living Etc. Carpets are the new laminate...

Steve

Posted on: 24 March 2002 by John3

Thanks for the comments. I've got Naim electronics and Spendor speakers. The Naim kicks life into the speakers and the Spendors tame any forward excess in the electronics. In other words I think my system is currently very well balanced (over carpet), neither overly bright or dull. By changing approx a third of the surface area of the room from a soft to hard surface must surely change the sound. Don't like the thought of an echoey sound. Any further comments welcome.

Posted on: 24 March 2002 by Jez Quigley

Carpet or divorce, it's your call

Posted on: 24 March 2002 by garyi

The laminate will have any number of effects but mostly what its being laid on will give you the difference between overly echoe/sharp or overly boomy/bass.

I guess mine is leaning more towards boomy, I think mabye this is the better side of things as After raising the SBLs onto two peices of Marble the boom has largly gone.

Under the laminate is underlay, parque flooring and then concreate, this is resonably solid.

If you are laying woodblock direct onto wood you may experience all sorts of noise troubles.

I suggest:

A. don't skimp on the laminate, get the more expensive HDF thicker stuff.

B. Lay it onto rockwall or similar.

C. I can emphasize B enough!

D. HI FI is important, but so is your living environment, laminate flooring looks lovly and really enhances the look of the house. Next door have just sold their flat for a lot of money after chatting with them they said that most viewers commented on the wood laminate throughout.

Hifi is important but not at the expense of your home and you relationships!

Enjoy.

Posted on: 24 March 2002 by Larry

If she wants a laminate floor, let her have one.
Make sure she gives you a hand with the installation though. 4 spikes per board, (not 3.)
Tap each one till they all make the same sound, then re-install your kit. The spikes are important but the finish is critical, Mahogany, great for orchestral work, Beech, works wonders with vocals,
Oak, just the job with English composers.
It's no good just banging any old veneer down without listening first. Pick a quiet night at the local B & Q or Ikea before hauling your kit down there and doing some serious auditioning.
Let me know how you get on.
Larry,

Posted on: 24 March 2002 by plynnplynn

quote:
Originally posted by John3:
Wife wants to change the lounge (hifi room) from carpet to wood/laminate flooring. If I give in to this how is it going to change the sound?

I was worried about this before I laid 14mm Kahrs Wooden Parquet Flooring - Oak (it comes in 8ft lengths) in my lounge. To my surprise there was no negative effect (nor positive) as far as I could hear. The room now however looks much better. Give it a go but buy decent wooden flooring rather than laminate - and lay it properly.
Good luck
Terry

Posted on: 25 March 2002 by Scott Mckenzie

A friend has recently installed a lot of wooden flooring throughout the house. Before he put a sofa, pictures, a desk etc in the room, it sounded horrendous, incredibly bright and echoey, now it sounds ok again, he doesn't have anything amazing, but once you have dampened the sound a bit it will be fine.

Also, i too say get proper wooden flooring, it looks loads better than laminate and is a lot nicer to walk on too...

Posted on: 25 March 2002 by John3

Looks as if the carpet is going and in it's place will be a nice warm cherry floor to match the speakers and rack. Hoping to negotiate a thick rug to go in front of the speakers.
We spend so much time and money upgrading our equipment yet it appears that just by adding or removing a piece of furniture or changing the flooring we can get just as much change in sound, for good or worse. Maybe we should spend more time getting these basics right first.