Hardwood floors in basement music room?

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.

I'm no expert, but I would think carpet over thick pad over concrete would be ideal. Adding wood, especially if it's raised, could introduce quite a bit of unwanted vibrations.

Never hardwood, carpet gets you a level playing field to get the other acoustics right. Go with a very heavy padding. Get a carpet with a 'cut pile', not a 'loop'.

I have a 17.5w x 26L x 9h dedicated basement room and my flooring is heavy carpet and pad over concrete. When I built the room I decided to use the 2x2 drop ceiling; I used a top quality ceiling tile. End result was that the room was too 'dead' overall. So, I removed approx. 30% of the ceiling tiles and inserted 2x2 cut-out plywood panels which I covered with nice speaker grill cloth. The grill cloth hides the unsightly floor joists, plumbing, and a/c duct work but allows the sound to pass right through. This was a major improvement. With this arrangement I don't think that I would want or need a hardwood or tile floor. Cheaper and easier than a new floor too. Another plus is that you can install the replacement ceiling tiles a few at a time and experiment with their positioning, effectively fine-tuning the live/dead balance of the room.

Hi Tatool, I think I can sympathise with your plight, but the main sonic advantage in having a wood floor to begin with is indeed the air cavity created by the riser. A concrete slab will at least tend to cause unwanted bass reflections. If you have some cinderblock walls to contend with as well you're in a bit of a pickle...and I guess if you also happen to be in a square shaped room, then you may as well hang a sign on the door that sez: 'abandon all musical hope ye who enter' ;P But, I'm serious when I say the air gap will help blunt and diffuse the bass reflection. Bass traps IME and IMO are rather largely overrated for perhaps an inexhaustable number of reasons. EQ is recommendable if you can work it into your system, particularly if it's digital. And for that matter don't overlook the importance of good power conditioning which can be especially benificial to someone dealing with bass problems like this, more than you might suspect. Sounds like you're already onto the right information, it's just that the how-to of the construction of the floor itself is one problem I haven't actually had to solve. I know in your case it's probably fraught with impracticalities to say the least, but I suspect sonically it's worth considering what it would take to solve the problem. Actually this is something you can very likely google. If you take the time with it I bet you'll come up with a good number of detailed enough examples of how others have solved this very issue. Hope this helps.