A fatal floor

[Floyddroid]

I moved into a new gaff eight months ago and have had some serious issues getting the system taylored to it's new surroundings. I have narrowed the problem down to the floor which seems to be sucking the life out of the sound. I have noticed that the carpet is very very thick or may have exceptionally thick underlay. I have a feeling that this is overdamping the room. Has anyone had similar problems or can give me some advice.:(

[Ali Tait]

Go to B&Q and buy some concrete slabs. Stick them under your rack and your speakers. Report back. :-)

[Floyddroid]

Getting a pair of large paving slabs underneath my Tannoy D900's is going to be hard work like.
Go to B&Q and buy some concrete slabs. Stick them under your rack and your speakers. Report back. :-)

[talisman2]

i'm sure your good lady will be very pleased to see hulking great lumps of concrete all over her best carpets !!! protect yer gonads !!!

[icehockeyboy]

Try the more wife friendly way by using granite chopping boards from most major supermarkets.

[Gordon Steadman]

Move house:eyebrows:

I always prefer bare boards and rugs. makes for a nice lively room.

[jollyfix]

Look online for a local granite/ marble worktop suppliers or similar. Visit them, ask to look in their waste skip. There you will find all the cut out bits from worktops ( hob/sinks etc). These tend to be the perfect size for racks/speakers etc. You can find some great colours too, norm 38mm thick.
The sides will need a polish, use wet and dry sandpaper up to 3000 grit, but 1200 will do ( buy from screwfix or similar). I have found some great bits this way, blue quartz, green gold marble etc.
The odd place may charge, the blue quartz i now have under my turntable cost me £ 5.00 from the skip, it was a big bit, cost me another £ 5.00 to cut it to 430x 450 mm, i could have done this myself with my grinder and monolit blade, but with their huge wet saw 3min job for them.

[Macca]

Is the floor concrete or suspended? If it is concrete then I doubt that is the problem. If moving house always go for a concrete floor and brick walls, none of this plasterboard malarky. Much easier to damp down a room that is too lively than to liven up a room that is sucking out all the bass and top. Forget location, number of bathrooms, off-road parking and all that bollocks, the only deal breaker with a new house should be how good the listening room is. You never see that advice on those so called property shows. They take people to these houses at 400k or whatever and say 'look you can be in the kitchen and see into the garden. Big deal. Where are the speakers going to go? Bloody amateurs.

[Gordon Steadman]

Is the floor concrete or suspended? If it is concrete then I doubt that is the problem. If moving house always go for a concrete floor and brick walls, none of this plasterboard malarky. Much easier to damp down a room that is too lively than to liven up a room that is sucking out all the bass and top. Forget location, number of bathrooms, off-road parking and all that bollocks, the only deal breaker with a new house should be how good the listening room is. You never see that advice on those so called property shows. They take people to these houses at 400k or whatever and say 'look you can be in the kitchen and see into the garden. Big deal. Where are the speakers going to go? Bloody amateurs.

Quite right. We bought our place because of the workshop potential, the land and most important, what will be the music room. It has a solid 800mm thick stone wall under where the speakers will stand and sounds great even in its unfinished state. About time people's priorities got real:mental:

[talisman2]

how about moving again to a more hi-fi friendly house ?? i'm sure 'er indoors' would understand ??

[DSJR]

Given the finances and skill, many of us would dress and furnish a room so that speech sounds best to our ears. Acousticians tend to set a listening space up so that the performing (speaker) end is a little livelier than the listening/audience end, although this initially sounds odd in a domestic context. I was in such a custom room once and the interesting thing was that ALL the speakers there at various prices sounded amazing, but the expensive ones didn't really sound 'better,' just bigger and louder to me :scratch:

Before condemning the carpet, can you try different style speakers? I don't know the D900, but the 700's were soft toned and fulsome in balance.

[Spectral Morn]

The main issue with suspended floors will be bass issues - unless they are very well screwed, glued down - with too much bass or very boomy bass. However there are occasions when they can suck the bass up. with bass issues certainly using heavy thick granite or slate will sort that out but keep in mind that this will raise the height of the speaker and that can itself cause issues.

Concrete floors certainly - usually but not always - can give the best bass but overall much depends on the shape of the room, reflective surfaces etc as to how it will sound overall. Boast walls and suspended floors need not be a disaster if the system is tailored to the room.

There is no way of being sure how any room will sound until you get the equipment in place so sadly house hunting will guarantee nothing ultimately some of the best rooms in theory turn out to be a real problem child.


Regards Neil

[MikeMusic]

When we moved I thought it was the room

Turned out to be the crappy mains, plus me running it on 4 way B&Q grade mains blocks

[RichB]

Concrete floors here and when we bought new carpet last year I went for thick underlay and deep pile, probably the flattest 'sounding' room in anywhere I've lived, this may well tame some of my systems more exuberant tendencies but the sound of the system is anything but flat!

Have my speakers also on composite chopping boards and the magic 5p pieces under the front spikes. As always Steve you'd be welcome to pop by any time for some prog banter and a listen.

Besides what's with these tannoys? Isnt that a bit of a turnaround for you, they must be good.

[Floyddroid]

They are Rich, bloody good.
Concrete floors here and when we bought new carpet last year I went for thick underlay and deep pile, probably the flattest 'sounding' room in anywhere I've lived, this may well tame some of my systems more exuberant tendencies but the sound of the system is anything but flat!

Have my speakers also on composite chopping boards and the magic 5p pieces under the front spikes. As always Steve you'd be welcome to pop by any time for some prog banter and a listen.

Besides what's with these tannoys? Isnt that a bit of a turnaround for you, they must be good.

[awkwardbydesign]

Why not buy (or borrow?) a couple of sheets of hardboard or ply and lay them on the carpet. That way you can see if it really is the carpet. About £12, and if like me you regularly use sheet material, you can re-use the boards later. It would take a few minutes to move them in and out, and easy to do.

[nat8808]

I would have thought it would be all about the acoustics of the room rather than on what the speakers stand, assuming they already come with spikes.

What you need to do is buy a laminate disco floor - instead of a rug on laminate, a laminate square on carpet.

You might just get used to it though and find that an acoustically damped room allows more detail via fewer reflected sounds smearing the sound. At the moment, it's going to sound a bit strange because people generally don't like over-damped rooms psychologically and it would be reasonable for that unease in general to effect how you respond to the system.