Hardwood floors vs Carpet

Replacing your carpeting with wood flooring will substantially change the acoustics in your listening area. Wood, being a hard substance, will reflect sound, rather than absorbing it like carpet. This may have several results: 1) Room echoes and standing waves may become more problematic, as the room has become "livlier"; and 2) the room acoustics will seem a lot brighter.

If you proceed with installation of hardwood flooring, you may find that you will have buy some area rugs to reduce acoustic "bounce", or perhaps install some room treatment materials to restore the audio balance you now enjoy. Unfortunately, you won't know what other corrective actions may be required until you have completed your flooring project.

You may want to solicit information from other Audiogoner's about how to sound treat a room with lots of reflective surfaces.

The best listening rooms have a "live" sound characteristic. It will require added work, but it's no big deal to achieve excellent sound in a hardwood floor room. Just as important as its acoustic properties, hardwood floors transmit vibration differently. A floating wood floor is an excellent technique to minimize external vibes from entering your system.

One last point that shouldn't be overlooked. A wood floor with fine quality rug looks good. I firmly believe that the visual feedback of a nicely appointed room positively effects sound performance.

Thanks folks,

for a moment I was thinking of pulling out the receipt to make a return and keep the rugs.