Hardwood floors in basement music room?

In my experience, I was way more successful and had better results in terms of musical enjoyemnt laying tile over concrete . I was going to do a wood floor in my basement but changed my mind when a neighbor who had wooden floors over concrete in his basement started to get rises, bows, and seams splitting in certain areas. He had the wooden floring for about 5 years, so, perhaps some of this is wear and tear, but, it was noticeable, and a persone could trip or something could get caught in the areas of the floor where it was rising. If done right, I am sure you may not have problems, but wood will always need to be treated.

I used ceramic tiles over radiant floor heating system and could not be happier. I used throw rugs in strategic locations in front of the speakers to reduce unwanted echoes. No problems after 5 years in my house with a full tile basement, just musical bliss. Good luck,

Audioquest4life

In the place I lived in before this one, I had a carpet on the hardwood floor between the listening chair and the speakers. Same thing in the place I was in before that one. However, I've got nothing at all on the wood floor in my current home. I tried putting down that very same (very nice) carpet, but it completely sucked the life out of the stereo, deadening, muffling everything. My room is mostly untreated -- and my system has never sounded better. Go figure.
In other words, I'm not sure you'll know until you try it out. If the wood doesn't work, you can always cover some of it with a carpet.

I have an opinion based upon a friends experience and my own regarding wood floors. Rigid floors improve bass and clarity. My own floor, suspended on joists, was carpeted and I replaced that with 3/4" Hickory tongue and groove boards. The floor is of course much stiffer now. I added area rugs which I'm sure help reflections. In your case, going from carpeting to wood on concrete will not change the stiffness. The big change will be reflections. Maybe you could try laying out some cardboard over the carpeting to get some idea of the potential change

I dislike any highly reflective surfaces in my music room. Stay with the carpet.

Thanks so much for all the great advice, I guess what I'm confused and concerned about is that I always hear how carpet over concrete is not good for sound and the best way to go is to build a wood riser and install your hardwood on top of that or install a wood subfloor first, but this room is already completely finished and if I build a riser or subfloor I would have to cut all my doors at the bottom and because of a bulkhead I would have ceiling height issues. I assumed from reading if I install hardwood it could and would improve the sound.If I do install hardwood floors because it's below grade (no-water issues)I still need to glue down some sort of vapor barrier or underlayment material and then I'm thinking I should glue the tongue & groove hardwood to that, just to keep everything tight and solid. Please give me any thoughts you may have on this and thank you.