Hardwoods or Carpet?

Posted by Rob [IP: 199.212.175.38] on October 30, 1998 at 08:48:21:

In Reply to: Hardwoods or Carpet? posted by Paul Kilvert Parmer II on October 30, 1998 at 04:26:36:

: Neil,
: I work at ONKYO America, Inc. in Columbus, IN. We Manufacture OEM speakers for the auto industry. We have a "listening room" setup for our Design Dept. and Customers to use for comparison of various speaker designs. The room consists of an Oak hardwood installed Horizontally on the wall behind the speakers and an Oak floor. The right, Left, and rear walls, for our purposes, have 2x4x10ft. baffles hanging from a track on the wall and filled with a polyfill, covered with your choice of cloth, trimmed with 1x4x10ft. Oak. This aids in changing the acoustics of the room. Add couch, end tables, chairs, and lighting of choice.

: I hope this aids in your search!!!

: Paul

Neal;

As you can see from Paul's post; acoustic room design can be a very complex subject; I remember studying acoustics back in college and one of our projects was to design a movie theatre -- long before the days that 'home' theatre came into vogue -- the bottom line is there is no quick answer to your question;
My off the cuff opinion; with a room of that size (practically a real theatre with the dimensions you gave ;>) would be to put down a low pile carpet on the floor; liven up the walls somewhat with pictures or paintings - the glass will add some reflection - try that and see what it sounds like; if still not to your taste, then follow Paul's advice and put up some acoustic materials on the walls.
So as not to assist in the difference of opinion between you and your wife -- put down hardwood flooring and cover it liberally with Persian rugs :)

Rob

Rob

: : Howdy Folks,

: : I have a great question for the home theater crowd. Which should I have in the living room, Hardwoods or Carpet?

: : This question comes from an on going discussion between my wife and I. We just bought a house and the carpet in the Livingroom really should be replaced. My wife wants hardwood floors, but I am afraid that they will hurt the overall acoustics of the room.

: : So should I cave in and put in hardwoods or should we just replace the old carpet (for argument's sake, lets pretend cost of flooring material is no object.....even though I like the idea that carpet is about 15% of the cost of hardwood flooring....we're trying to be objective here....)

: : The room is approx' 30x23* with a 12' Cathedral ceiling. We have a ProLogic system (soon to be AC-3) with Polk's LS series speakers (LS50 Mains, CS350 Center and LSf/x rear + PSW300 sub.)

: : *I am guessing....I will measure tonight.

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