Bouncy wooden floors

The listening room in my new house is on the first floor and has a bouncy suspended floor. This means a lot of the bass energy is wasted driving the floor and it can also sound boomy.

My present kit just doesn't work in the new room, so I have decided to splash out on a complete new system. I have had a number of demos and am always drawn to nice big speakers with powerful amps that give a sense of solidity and the feeling that the musicians are there in person. I like to be able to play the system loud when the mood takes.

However, I am not sure how such a system would work in my room. I have considered a number of options:

1) using a de-coupling device under the speakers, but what would work best?

2) get some stand mounts and a sub which could be mounted off of the floor - but would it sound as good as big floormounts?

3) re-enforce the floor with some extra floor joists and fill the void with roof insulation - a tad drastic

4) move house again - even more drastic.

I would be interested if any one else has had a similar problem and how they overcame it.

 

Stick the lot on air platforms , the hifi and the speakers .

I,d invest in them before thinking about changing your kit .
If your on a budget , then make them yourself .
If not then either look at townshend seismic sinks or, for a nicer looking air platform , Voodoo would fit the bill .

 

Are your speakers on spikes? If not, definitely give that a try before ditching them. My floor is much the same as yours and I too have problems with vibrations in the floor and wasted bass energy, but I found raising the stands (my speakers are standmounts) onto some heavy-duty spikes produces a huge reduction in the amount of energy transmitted to the floorboards.

I've still not sorted the problem completely, but the spikes helped an awful lot. I'm curious to know how you get on.

Dunc

 

Mana, obviously.

 

I don't think there is really a fail-safe cure. I have the same problem, and apart from covering the floor in a large rug or carpet which would help,I would suggest any solutions are only going to reduce the interaction. Fortunately, we are having a new extension which will not have suspended floors. I can't wait to see it finshed so that I can set up my kit. I have fairly large speakers, ob1's and Bryston amps and although they work better in the existing room than my previous naims and kabers, I can still feel the bass through the floor and do get boom on some music.

Rod

 

I get a splendid sound very much as you describe, in a small loft with bouncy wooden floors. I use Royd RR2ss, small floorstanders with a slow bass rolloff the literature says helps integrate with a room's resonance.

Decoupling is necessary to make things work, but but that doesn't mean lots of expense or bother.

My preferred device is two roughly 10cm square pieces of 15mm foamed butyl rubber topped with a piece of light, stiff cork tile to spread the load fairly evenly and add stability. For speakers, a 2p coin supports a coin. The cork tile is self adhesive, but there's no glue between the pieces of FBR.

I assume this is better than a single platform, as each support has only one force acting on it instead of four.

The FBR came from zanash, but lord only knows where he's got to.

 

My recommendation: Grand Prix Audio Apex feet. Not cheap, but these things do wonders. There is a review of them on 6moons.com on the very problem you raise. Alvin Loyld really knows what he is doing.

 

Thanks for the suggestions so far, I intend to try isolation as the first step, maybe even m**a.

The room is carpeted and the speakers are on large concrete slabs. The slabs help a bit, but are too ugly to stay. If you walk across the room too energetically, the CD can skip, even though it is on a sturdy stand. I may try wall mounting the equipment.

I am seriously considering strengthening the floor below the speakers, but this would be if all else fails.

I want to upgrade the whole system, not because of the floor, but because I am not happy with what I have got at the moment. I was wondering if small standmount speakers combined with a sub raised off the floor might be better than large floor standers?

I heard some PMC IB2's at Heathrow yesterday and thought that these would be a kill or cure solution. Either there would be enough bass left over after driving the floor or the whole lot would collapse, leaving me downstairs on a nice solid concrete floor.

 

Mana of course - apparently

 

Hi how thick are your concrete slabs? I have my Kef's 4.2s on 50mm thick slabs covered with the same carpet as is on the floor under the slabs I use Monacor SPS-20 spikes they can be stuck on with the pads supplied, my kit is wall mounted on a de-coupled rack made from 18mm marine ply with 20mm thick acrylic platforms quite cheeep to make !!!! don't be too eager to part with your readies before you try DIY.

 

I've just spent a frigging age trying to get just one of my 'new' sound bases to level properly, the floor is so flexible. Mind you i used a 24" builder level to do it. I gave up and used the proper tools ( mana spirit level and the balance board and it all worked) serves me right for trying to be clever , eh ?
When i bought my current house, i left everything to my wife to sort out as i was working away at the time, earning the dosh to pay for it all. She chose the the house , the location , everything - I just visited it once for 40 minutes , it seemed Ok and so paid the deposit and let her sort out the rest. Never , ever again am i going to buy a house with suspended wooden floors ! OK it is great for getting into the crawl-space to sort out your wiring, drains, central heating, etc, etc, but as for Hi-Fi forget it. I might as well set my rig up on a drum skin !

I've actually been using a high mass granite/ silcon rubber/wood and Air tube support quite successfully for a long time. The Mana was reasonable cheap s/h and so i thought i'd give it a try. We'll see.....

 

Here are some ideas from my gaff:

My house had bouncey wooden floorboards when I/we bought it but during renovation I ripped them all out and fitted solid oak flooring (from France - cheaper) which is much sturdier. When I did this I fitted supporting wooden "X" struts made out of 2" by 2" between the joists and filled the gaps in between the joists with two types of insulation. Foil-backed Kingspan at the bottom and rockwool boards between the Kingspan and the wooden floor. Anyway, I now have a very solid floor which is well damped acoustically (for a floating floor at least)

I also fitted brick foundations under the spaeaker stands with isolating studs running up through the oak floor so that the stands are de-coupled from the floor.

I also ran all my cables, including a dedicated spur for the hifi, through plastic pipes underneath the floor.

And finally I've got my system on wall shelves to further isolate it from the floor effects.

The room now works pretty well. I use the odd rug on the floor and some home made diffusers behind the speakers to further tweak the acoustics.

 

That's easy to fix. Put the stand on a 60cm paving slab (painted in a suitable finish of course). I use a 3cm thick slab. The more common 5cm slabs are very heavy and overkill IMHO.