Use solid hardwood or laminate?

[cprescott1972]

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.

[Soundman2020]

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.

Density of hardwood is around 800 kg/m3. density of concrete is about 2300 kg/m3. So unless your hardwood flooring is about 12" thick, it won't make any real difference to isolation. In both cases (concrete and hardwood), reflection is similar.

The density of MDF (the stuff laminate floor is made with) is about 750 kg/m3, so there's practically no difference with respect to the hardwood flooring.

Perhaps creating an undesirable resonance, or absorbance?

The underlay used typically for laminate flooring is closed-cell foam. So there's no air trapped in it, hence no air cavity, and no air resonance. The foam itself is a bit spongy so it has some resilience, but to be honest there's so little mass (surface density) in the laminate flooring that there's nothing to worry about. If anything, it acts vaguely like a "drum riser" platform, to a minimal extent, which is a good thing.

I'd go with the laminate, and save yourself 500 bucks. (You'll actually save a lot more than that, since the installation cost for hardwood flooring is higher than it is for laminate.)


- Stuart -

[cprescott1972]

Thanks for the reply!
I'm feeling like I'm gonna go laminate.
Happy to save the money and the installation seems pretty straight forward.