Solid wood flooring versus affordable laminate flooring

C

cprescott1972

New member
Hello!
I am finishing up a small all-in-one mixing recording room in my garage. For the flooring I'm planning on putting some sort of wood flooring over the concrete slab.

I have a lead on some nice hardwood for $210 / sq', which brings me up to $714 for my small 340 sq ' room.
The other option is some super cheap laminate flooring from home depot, which gets great reviews on durability and ease of installation. 58 cents a sq'. This option is only $214 (with tax).

So the question is, whether there is a sonic benefit to using the solid wood over a cheap thin laminate. I've been reading that the reflective qualities are very similar between different hard materials. I'm assuming that the mass of the thicker solid wood planks would probably create a slightly more pleasant reflective quality? Versus the thin fiber board over a foam pad. Perhaps creating an undesirable resonance, or absorbance?

Not sure if this minute difference is worth the extra $500?

Any suggestions?

This is for a decent recording space, but not any world class studio environment. I'm of course over budget at this point.
The wood would be nice but if the laminate flooring won't mess up what I'm doing, I'm leaning towards that.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts on the matter.
 
You might have a slight advantage with the solid wood for the reasons you already mentioned. Probably not a huge difference, though.

I wouldn't discount leaving the concrete, too. Many studios are actually going in that direction, too. So, that's always an option.
 
I can only give an opinion. I would think the laminae would not have the same warmth as real wood. Just how the laminate would reflect (it is foe wood or wood made from wood by products) which I wouldn't think would perform the same as real wood. I wouldn't buy a laminated acoustic guitar.

I might be wrong or the difference can't be heard or there are so many other things going on in the room the floor could be your least worries.
 
All three are going to have similar reflective properties. I'd go with the laminate.
 
In my recording I went with the laminate and its fine, I did use concrete and a few rugs for a while but the concrete is very cold and hard on the feet. The laminate has an insulated layer under it that is designed for apartments so that the noise does not transfer through the floor, I used it even though I and at ground level as it's cheap, does help a little with sound transfer, and also keeps the floor warmer in winter.

My control room by the way has tiles, they were already there when I rebuilt the place and I just left them to see how it worked, they are also fine, and easy to clean.

Alan.
 
Go with the wood. It's worth the extra $$$. I have laminate in here - And it's pretty decent stuff - But thank goodness it doesn't have much effect on the sound in here. It sounds terrible just to walk on in other rooms. It's "floating" and it's unusually consistent - which makes it excellent at transferring sound through it.

Sure, it's somewhat dependent on the material and the installation style - But most rooms I've been in with laminate, the floor itself has a "hollow, high ping" to it that wood never has. Tap the surface with something hard - The tip of a screwdriver. Laminates tend to spread that "ping" over the whole surface where wood will have a dull "thud" at the source that pretty much stays there.

There are some awesome "engineered" wood floors out there though -- But they're thick, heavy - just like a normal wood floor. They just don't scratch as easily. And they're usually at least as expensive as oak. That said, just spend the extra $$$.

I'm not even coming at this from an acoustics issue -- I'm coming at it from the point of someone who's had wood floors and laminate floors and had both installed and only ever regrets one - Which happens to be the one I have now. :-(
 
I'm pretty sure you can't just lay hardwood on top of concrete. Unless its 'engineered', you need to nail hardwood floors down.
 
Nah, you lay down a moisture barrier. Then just start snapping it together like legos.

Edit: sorry didnt fully read it. I was talking about laminate.

Hardwood usually invloves laying down some plywood first. A least thats the way ive done it.
 
That's what I was telling him. I learned that having just re-floored my whole house. Hardwood everywhere except one room that sits on a concrete slab. Went with a laminate there. You can lay hardwood over a slab, but you'll need to lay down a plywood under-layer first to give the nails something to bite into. You wind up losing a couple of inches of headroom. If the ceiling in your garage is high, not a problem.
 
I should point out that there is cheap laminate and more expensive better quality laminate out there, as I said before I went with laminate but I used the better quality stuff. As massive pointed out cheap laminate does have a ping to it, the better stuff does not seem to do this, I don't have this problem.

Cheers
Alan.
 
witzendoz said:
... I went with laminate but I used the better quality stuff.
Click to expand...

Which one is that?

I've been kicking around a floor redo for my studio...have some old carpet on half of it, wood parquet on the other...and I wanted to really do a hardwood floor. I've looked at laminate options and just haven't seen anything that gives me a woody, and the sound of it annoys me...plus some of the higher priced laminates approach hardwood floor pricing...so I'm wondering if it's not worth it to just do the wood...?
 
I went with Pergo laminate on my basement floors. Sits right on top of the concrete (with a moisture barrier, of course). This stuff had the back padding built-in. Definitely not as cozy as hard wood, but considerably cheaper and without the loss of height that Robus mentioned. My only complaints are that it's a little static-y in the winter, and it has that telltale "clack" sound of laminate when something hits it.
 
Tadpui said:
My only complaints are that it's a little static-y in the winter, and it has that telltale "clack" sound of laminate when something hits it.
Click to expand...

The static is a PITA...and when your monitors are powered up and you touch something, you get huge pops through the audio....
...but it's that "clack" that I find the most annoying and why I have not gone with the laminate floors I've checked out.

Just talking with someone earlier today who has laminate floor in the kitchen, and same complaint..."clack, clack, clack".
 
Hardwood on top of a concrete slab is perfectly ok, I have 120mm x 18mm solid oak throughout my ground floor and it's great. I think they use a special glue / paste that was pretty expensive.
BTW this is on top of underfloor heating.
Some modern laminates look great but if you have spare cash go for wood.
 
Something else that works. Looks good and is cheaper is to put down sheet of particle board and then coat it with a stain. I did this at my last studio in the drum area and it looked great. I got the idea from a larger studio near me that did this in the whole studio.

Alan.
 
On those lines. I did my whole studio with Flake board, some call it chipboard.

I did an insulated floor where I raised it by doing a two by four framework. I isolated with rubber, then insulated the crap out of it.
then on top of that i glued and screwed 4 by 8 sheets of particleboard.
On top of that, I put 12 by 12 squares of the chipboard. This was glued and nailed.

It looked cool after a few coats of poly.
And it actually made a huge sound difference in the room for the better.

Looks wise, It looked much more expensive that it was.
 
Hardwood is only an issue in basements. I don't know of any hardwood manufacturer that recommends it.

I put in some basic red oak in my living room. I did not put wood in my home studio because it's in a basement and it would have ran me close to $3k (on the cheap) for the square footage I needed.

I did this stuff instead because of price, ease to install, it floats in the concrete (so no big worries even if your floor is pretty uneven/not level) and it's water resistant. So far a year later and it still looks great.

TrafficMASTER Allure 6 in. x 36 in. Country Pine Resilient Vinyl Plank Flooring (24 sq. ft. / case)-33114 - The Home Depot

I was also able to do around 800 sq feet in a day because it's so quick to put it in. Wood flooring took me 2 full days to bang in 540 sq feet.

The other option I was considering though was just staining the concrete. When I looked into it the price wasn't bad (like $600 or so). I just wasn't confident it was gonna come out that great and I was told it's messy. The other problem is there is not much in the way of ventilation in my basement and I was worried about drying it.

But it looks fantasic when done right though and you can add a special sand to it in order to keep the traction when wet:
http://www.flatrockconstruction.com/uploads/4/5/5/6/45562697/9262868_orig.jpg
http://www.stainedbydesign.com/images/AcidStainDualScore1.jpg
http://www.vividconcrete.com/images/acidstain/overlays/jahouse/img_6688.jpg

No matter what you install just fallow the directions, wood is gonna require a gap between the wall and were the flooring ends for expansion (the company will leave the recommended gap in the directions) and a lot of laminate will as well.
 
A couple of thoughts from someone new to the recording aspect:

depending on changing humidity, wood floors will occasionally squeak. I love wood floors. The entire bottom floor of our home is recently installed wood. We also have a meter for humidity, a dehumidifier, and a humidifier to keep the humidity in a certain range. Wood also expands and contracts, making a slightly wavy surface possible at times, where the wood strips join. Laminates may expand and contract less so.

There are rubber/plastic/foam squares which interlock and can be laid down over a concrete slab for comfort and insulation. Depending on material, might be less reflective than wood. Certainly more comfortable (I have them in my garage and work areas). Anyone's thoughts on how these may work as studio flooring? Or, wouldn't a tight nap carpet be less expensive and less reflective?
 
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