Best flooring for an acoustic music room?
 

Well, my new home is almost done, so I am down to a few (almost) final decisions, one of which is whether to do really nice laminate flooring in my music room, or boring old carpet. It is a 10 x 13 room with an 8' ceiling. It will house my acoustic and electric guitars and our piano, and I don't currently record, so I'm primarily interested in the acoustics of the room for live playing. I would go for the hard flooring in a hearbeat except that the only piece of furniture in the room will be a chaise lounge for my wife, so I am a little concerned about too many hard surfaces bouncing sound around. The room is also very visible to guests, so my wife is not crazy about a lot of odd looking "acoustic treatment" on the walls.

Matt,
Hardwood and a couple of good rugs that you can move as needed to adjust the room.
HE

You are probably right. A hardwood floor in a hard room could be a problem. Get some sound absorbing panels on the walls and roof and then hardwood floors would be fine.

It probably depends a lot on the size and shape of the room. If it's small and rectangular, you probably want to deaden it a lot with sound absorbing materials. If it's bigger and has irregular geometry, it will probably sound pretty nice if you leave it reflective.
You may also want to think about the people outside of the room, and how isolated the room needs to be acoustically. Totally different situation- but heavy doors, double-hung drywall, and a floating floor can work wonders.

I've noticed that most of the high end Acoustic rooms in the better music stores have hardwood flooring. That coupled with all the acoustic guitars hanging on the walls make most guitars sound better than when you get them home. I took out the wall to wall carpet in my music room and installed a oak hardwood floor. The room is 18'x14' with 9' ceilings. It made big difference for the acoustics, but it's not as good for the electric guitars. I've since set up my electric rig in our much larger family room with carpet. I think the biggest problem with my electric rig was the room was to small.

Matt,

I like Howard's suggestion. My studio has carpet with some absorbent stuff on the walls, and while it's good for recording, it's pretty dead for playing acoustic instruments. As Denny above noted, the absorbent stuff is much better for electric guitars.

These days I play my acoustics in the house in the kitchen with a hard wood floor for as much timeas my wife will put up with (in general, she likes it).

Thanks, Glenn

Hardwood, always, Hardwood
but with one or two rugs to dappen some sound expecially under the mics if you record. but i'm not an expert, just my preferences
John