[Trev@Circle]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

There's nothing to agree or disagree with! The context of the original question in Post #4 that I answered was wood over a solid concrete slab. That's all I addressed. I appreciate that everyone doesn't want to be bothered to actually read this thread from the beginning, but it's pointless to challenge me on something I never actually said.--Ethan

Oh I've been following it avidly. Unfortunately I'm no acoustician but I can read and have been known to enjoy a bit of a debate and it's not entirely right tp say that the whole discussion has been about reflectivty because you've rubbished a number of people's points that talk about the effect of the difference on sound.

While much of the time you take the narrow approach (particularly when you are talking about testing) of reflectivity, in a number of places you are clearly talking about a comparison of the affect of the sound in a room rather than pure reflectivity. In post 51 you say:

The use of wood versus cement in a typical basement studio comes up almost daily in the forums

and in post 54:

"I have a basement / garage studio and I'm thinking of covering the cement floor with wood because someone told me it will sound much better and warmer."

The above is typical, and is by far the most common application of this question that I see in forums.

Surely you are not suggesting that the posters are asking about pure reflectivity of material? It must be pretty obvious that they are asking how the different materials will affect the sound of their room. While your narrow answer to them may arguably be right in terms of pure reflectivity the very fact that you are resiling from that in this argument (by saying you are only talking about reflectivity rather than the effect on the sound in a room) implies you accept that you there is more to consider in respect of the affect on a room. Similarly, if you read the posts of most other members they are talking about the affect a wooden surface has on the sound of the room (because that's what the real world discussion is about). Perhaps this entire debate has simply been a miscommunication because you were talking about pure reflectivity (even though that was not clear a t all times) while others were talking about real world 'affect'? Other posts in which you refer to the sound rather than the reflectiity include 33, 35, 42, 51 and 77.

Not sure what you're asking but all materials absorb, reflect, and pass through, in some proportion. In the case of wood bonded to a solid cement base, passing through is removed from the equation at all but very low frequencies.

What I'm asking is do you accept that the factors I refer to could have an effect on the sound of the room? The point being that they may not absorb, reflect and pass through equally in the different materials which takes us back to the other points I refer to. Unless we can also measure the impact those factors have on 'sound' or tonality (whether by resonance or otherwise) the argument simply doesn't stack up.

Almost as an aside I also find it quite confusing that you continually refer to dong things scientifically. Good science, as I understand it, is about taking all of the factors into account which might impact on the result not narrowing the parameters of the test so potential factors which might impact on real world outcomes are ignored.