I've confused myself (not that difficult a thing to do). Summary of where I'm at: Currently building new home. Home theater will be on first floor below one son's bedroom. Going to build a room within a room. Plan on floating the inner floor using u-boats. Some of the things I've read said that I should build the inner floor with joists at 12" and then run stringers between them. Helps stiffen the floor to reduce vibration. Seems to make sense. But, one of the things I don't like about my current home theater is the bass level. I have good speakers (Def Tech BP2002 with powered subs). I always thought that it was because the speakers sat on a concrete slab. The new theater would have a wood floor and better bass transfer? In fact I was thinking about adding bass shakers to the raised floor section. But then all this goes against trying to stiffen the floor and reduce vibration to the bedroom upstairs. Is the floor/HT room structure where you typically get some of the bass response from? Or should the subwoofer be moving air only? Why doesn't it seem to work now? Thanks. Bill
Bill there's really not a whole lot you can do to really cut down on the bass escaping to the rest of the house. You can add as much mass as you like to the floors and walls which will help but ultimately bass travels very well though walls and floors etc. Now that said with a wooden floor you're going to get a lot more of that tactile feel that concrete floors just don't give you. This could be a good or bad thing depending on your tastes and how boomy it sounds. A wooden floor can sometimes add a little boom to the sound that you wouldn't get with a concrete floor.
