I had the carpet in our lounge and hall ways removed and we had the floor boards sanded and sealed. They look great and easy to clean in the high use areas. The main system is here, and works fine, though there is a rug and soft furniture to absorb sound waves and avoid too much reflection (through we have too many windows…).
The bedrooms are carpet, which we replaced a few years ago, and prefer that for comfort in the bedrooms.
When we re-did our kitchen, it had lino on particle board. We ended up laying timber effect commercial grade lino over a 5mm timber sheeting.
My office is carpet on plywood suspend over a concrete floor, due to waterproofing issues. Ceiling is quite low, and the acoustics are really nice.
Some years ago staying in a friend’s flat I had some LPs on an Ikea type shelving unit near a door to the small rear garden - left the door open one summer’s day and an inquisitive moggie came in and decided that the LPs on the bottom shelf were an ideal scratch post - I was not impressed, the edges of 20-30 LPs ruined and torn within seconds.
When we bought our Victorian house I assumed the floors were that kind of herringbone parquet - imagine my dismay on lifting the carpet to find chipboard underneath it!
Several carpet cleans with a Bissell cleaner must have rotted the chipboard over several years as it became bouncy. We had some work done a few years ago, and discovered a leaking lead water pipe under that floor too.
That room was my main listening room, and I hate the suspended floor - it’s been ‘re-boarded’ with engineered oak on top - hell of a draft from under the skirting board now.
My system is an adjoining room with a solid floor currently with engineered oak on top but I think I’ll have to move it back for domestic harmony…
The inquisitive moggie obviously digs your taste in music!
If i do go for wood flooring my plan is to buy cheap rugs, have a few cat scratching posts around the place, and shut the cats out of the music room when i’m not around to supervise.
Have a couple of scratching posts already and 3 out of 4 of my cats do find them irresistible, the one that doesn’t like posts likes to feel the quality of a good rug.
I cut trapdoors in my floors to go down and fit 100mm of polyurethane foam insulation board beneath the floorboards (otherwise it’d have been a bigger job taking them up to do it). Sealant squeezed into all floorboard gaps and under/around skirting boards closed up many draught/leakage routes. Then a good underlay and carpet…
I’m have gained the impression it is the term used by some people (architects?) for any suspended timber floor, so these days I dutifully ignore the implication ‘sprung’…
