Flooring advice on basement listening room.

I would go with the laminate and a large area rug between speakers and listening position.

Allan - we updated our finished basement a few years ago.  Ripped out the carpeting as part of it.  If the basement is below grade you definitely want an engineered wood product.  The contractor doing ours installed a moisture barrier/elevated subfloor first - a modular product (from Home Depot, I believe...mighta been Dri Core or something much like it).  An engineered wood product (locking tongue and groove) went down over that.  Large area rugs and GIK acoustic panels definitely needed afterwards to tame brightness (as expected) but the room acoustics now are just right...not too bright, not too dead.  The system is posted if that is any help.  Good luck.

My dedicated room is engineered wood floor, large heavy area rug covering 70% of floor, acoustic panels from Primacoustic. 
Sounds wonderful.

If moisture isn't a problem, I have always had heavy wall to wall carpet. I've seen and heard systems put on hardwood floors or concrete with no rugs and they sound absolutely horrible.

Thanks for all the advice.  My wife wants to carpet.  Our house was built in 1959 and is drafty.  Such is the world of compromise.

(Wall to wall?) carpet in a basement is even more good reason to consider a subfloor like the Dri Core modular product.

Flooring advice on basement listening room

What is the floor now, suspended or is it a cement slab??

Cheers George

I have lived in a few homes with basements and have never had one yet that didn't eventually have a water leak of some sort.

Sonic considerations only, assuming a concrete floor, I feel carpet and pad is best. Basement water issues can be a concern due to leakage through walls or floor, plumbing leaks. 

Floor floor is cement now.

allansumnall OP7 posts02-19-2018 11:36amFloor floor is cement now.

Best floor you can have to spike the speakers/stand with.
Just make sure your water proofed it if below ground level, and use a good quality underlay and wall to wall carpet as your floor covering.

Cheers George

I had a portion of the basement converted into a dedicated audio room. 2 3/4 sides have concrete walls, but the remaining 1 1/4 side, I installed double dry wall on both sides with Green Glue between them. I have carpet over concrete and it has worked great for me. Your wife will also love it.
@ghosthouse has mentioned about GIK panels - these will work great when placed properly.

Whilst it’s true that cement slabs are better than wood floors since they’re much stiffer, you’re not out of the woods yet because seismic forces, including Earth crust motion, cause the entire building, including the cement slab, to move in all directions. Like a boat 🛥 is moved up and down and all around by waves passing under it. That’s why seismic isolation is beneficial even for rooms on cement slabs. When you isolate something you’re isolating it from the entire building and the motion of the Earth. 🌎

geoffkait. You're talking about extremely minute movement and at very infrequent times here. How does this affect one's system???

No. That’s what you say I’m talking about. 

Well, I guess if you ask a stupid question, you get an idiotic answer.....

Don’t shoot me, I’m only the messenger. If you don’t know just say you don’t know.

I thought my question implied that "I don't know". Ok. I don't know. Could you please give me an explanation about your post above. I'm not trying to troll you, was just curious.

The seismic vibration is continuous, micro seismic activity as opposed to earthquakes. Plus traffic, wind, subways, etc. The reason these relatively small amplitude low frequency vibrations are a problem for audio is that much of the signal, e.g., phono cartridge, tonearm wire, preamps, DACs, are low level signals and completely susceptible to low frequency seismic vibration. I.e., electromagnetic waves are distorted by vibration. Even high level signals are susceptible to vibration as we’ve seen with cable risers, etc. Thus, even for rooms on cement slabs vibration isolation improves the sound.