Wayne Parham Messages: 18783 Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)
I've been in some rooms with wood floors over crawlspaces that made everything sound very "nasal," sort of like the way a bathroom can sound. Even though the rooms were large, they sounded hollow like a small room does. The crawlspace formed a kind of resonant cavity.
In Tulsa, there are lots of homes like this in the "midtown" area. It was so common I used to think all homes on crawlspaces were acoustic problems. I always preferred homes on foundations.
Since then, I've encountered a lot of homes with wood floors that weren't on a slab but that weren't a problem. It seems like the narrow crawlspaces are the most troublesome, because second-story rooms don't seem to be a problem nor are rooms built some distance above the ground, like homes built on a hill with multiple levels.
But man, if you have one of those resonant crawlspaces under the room, it's really tough to get the sound right. It's the worst in the midbass and midrange.