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Harwood Flooring Information For Dedicated Room

I am seeking advise on hardwood floor installation for my dedicated sound room. The wood flooring will tentatively be used on only 1/3 of the floor - the speaker end of the room. The hardwood will end about 8 inches in front of the speakers such that the speakers will be sitting on the hardwood and fire into the carpeted end of the room. The room is on the second level with a wood subfloor on 2x10 joists. Speakers are Dunlavy SC4a on Sistrum SP101 stands.

Should I use...

Real Hardwood?
Engineered?
Floating?
Nailed down?
Glued?
Underlayment or directly to subfloor?

Any information would be much appreciated. Thanks so much for your experience and expertise!
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forrestc
89 posts
 
Nothing beats the look and solidness of real 5/8" or 3/4" hardwood nailed or glued down. Either way, you will have a nice soild floor. On the other hand, floating engineered or laminate flooring tends to be noisy (just tap on it) since it is thin and de-coupled the sub-floor.
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,333 posts
 
There is a special underlay product that reduces noise and is used in appartment buildings - I'd recommend that to dampen vibration - it is expensive though and the floor will need to be glued down. I think a live end can sound nice if you have an acoustically dead end around and behind the listener. The product will raise the wood floor considerably and you can therefore use a thick underlay under the carpet too...the more absorption the better.
newbee
4,093 posts
 
On my 1st level floor I used 1" T&G Oak nailed on 1" plywood laid over 2x6 T&G doug fir over 12" joists on 16" centers. On the second level I used 1" T&G oak over and nailed to 1" plywood which was screwed and glued on 10" joists on 16" centers. Virtually no floor flex on either level. FWIW.
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