Do you prefer a "hard" or "soft" floor?

[FONSguy]

Slab concrete floor. Vaulted ceilings. Side walls 8'+ off to either side.

 

[sqlsavior]

I would prefer floors that do not squeak, but mine that do aren't killing me.

What could is not being at ground level. Something aging folks like me should consider more, IMO. I wonder how many extra months of life expectancy one gains by retiring in a one-story, ground level house or apartment. I bet it's significant. Simple falls kill lots of older people, or start the process. My father was one.

More on-topic, I just haven't noticed big differences in sound quality with respect to floor type in my experience, and don't do floor-shaking volume anymore. My friend's corner horns ended up in a slab-floor house. When he cranked them, I never noticed that the floor was shaking, maybe because every other part of the house seemed to be. Shaking, that is...

 

[sKiZo]

A concrete slab can ring under the right circumstances. Good luck getting around that, eh.

Truss floor here, carpeted for winter comfort. I've reinforced the trusses with X braces and added a couple of solid supporting structures underneath that double as storage. I've also damped the area directly under the speakers with rock wool. Actually had more problems with buzzing pipes and windows here - Windows were upgraded, and pipes were isolated to fix that.

PS - my listening area tends toward "bright" anyway, even with the carpeted floor. I've added ceiling dampers to compensate, courtesy of Home Depot. What's fun is telling folk to wipe their feet, and then pointing up ...

 

[Wildcat]

Concrete slab on a cinder block foundation here (add-on family room), covered in a low-pile berber carpet. It's nice not having wood floors resonate--it really cleans up bass response, and spiking the speakers to the concrete through the carpet really sounds better IMHO. There is also no interference from footfalls getting through to my equipment rack which is also spiked through the carpet. I have only found that suspended wood floors create a bigger set of problems when you are trying to correct other problems in the room (like peaks and nulls in bass response) since I also had resonating wood flooring to deal with. And less of that energy "escaped" into other parts of the house as well.

I once read of a trick for apartment/condo dwellers who had others living below them--resting the speakers and/or subwoofer(s) on a concrete patio block did a lot to help reduce those resonances that would transmit through the ceiling.

 

[SaSi]

For a listening room, if you want to have good bass reproduction, the recommended optimum is to have a concrete floor, a layer of insulation foam and then planks of laminated wooden floor. This acts like a bass absorber, absorbing much of the bass, fighting room modes.

In terms of personal preference, I like to walk on a wooden floor that is mounted on beams forming a hollow space below. It just sounds better for me - not acoustically, just the way footsteps sound on it.

 

[whoaru99]

I could try both ways, but I'm not in the mood to A/B the exact same system by moving it back and forth between basement and upstairs. Even if I did, not sure it would be apples to apples anyway since the spaces are different in other ways too.

FWIW, the vast majority of houses around here have basements. So, unless you set up a basement listening room or build a slab on grade addition you'll most likely have a hollow space under.

 

[Grenadeslio]

We have slab on grade with pad and commercial closed loop carpet in the listening room. It sounds pretty good to me and no foot fall problems with the Thorens TT.

This right here, the AR XA is also prone to this. Most just wall mount to get around it, but that's not always a viable solution.

 

[Audiofreak71]

This right here, the AR XA is also prone to this. Most just wall mount to get around it, but that's not always a viable solution.

Or get the upgrade from Marc Morin and never have to worry about foot falls. Not sure which one is cheaper but im thinking the Marc Morin Mod would be, just a thought.

Audiofreak71

 

[Mitkraft]

Which do you choose
A hard or soft option
(How much do you need)

In a West end town a dead end world......

 

[Djcoolray]

I’m old...

I like a soft floor because old people are like socks, the older they get.......the more they fall down !!!!!

 

[UncleBingo]

Wood floor (Not that Pergo garbage) over concrete with wool rug (Persian type- thick wool). Speakers are Altec 15's with 511 horns, 802-8g drivers on urethane casters mounted to plywood sand boxes with 50# sand inside. Not much spurious weirdness there.
That was then. Now? 2nd floor; wood joists do resonate. Sand boxes and casters help. I miss that industrial loft space...

 

[savatage1973]

I remember for a while in the 70's, there was a speaker "device" that was a plate that coupled to a solid wall or floor. The whole floor then became the subwoofer, kind of a "sensuround" type thing.

These still exist, and are used quite extensively in dedicated HT systems--search for "bass shakers" and you will find lots of them. PE sells a lot of them. They are not speakers, but more like a servo controlled piston device.