Listening Room Upgrade

I may get some negative feedback for this, but I like hardwood floors with area rugs. The reason for this is to let the speakers sound bounce off the floor in the nearfield, but then get absorbed further into the room. I have done this in a few listening rooms with very good results. In my opinion in helps create a soundstage--now it won't work for all speakers, so I should qualify that I have done this successfully with Martin Logan speakers (which as most know are very finicky about placement, and have to have a reflective wall behind them to create a good soundstage to begin with). As for the carpet, a good thick wool oriental works great.

i agree with abstract7. you might better spend your money by placing more cross-bracing underneath your new floors, replicating 10-12" o.c. if you do install wall-to-wall carpeting, i'd suggest you cover the area between your speakers (outside edge to outside edge) with a thick wool area rug or "oriental carpet." this solution works better, in my experience, than using a natural fiber carpet alone. -kelly

In addition to the above suggestions... If you want to reproduce the lowest bass octaves, stiffen your floor from below. If you have heavy speakers, seperating them from the overall cross bracing and bracing them to the sub floor in the basement or crawl space also helps. Treating first reflections with something like ASC tube traps gives a significant improvement in the mid bass to midrange.