When it comes to soundproofing, the Reverso SoundMat is a great option for hardwood floors. It can be applied directly to any engineered wood floor that is 18 mm or more thick. For thinner hard finishes, we recommend using a 6 mm plate to provide a flat, stable base. Two of our base layers provide excellent sound isolation: the 19 dB Quickstep Unisound Combiflor and the 17 dB Quickstep Silent Walk dB.
These can be used with laminate or engineered floors and are perfect for sneaking in for a midnight snack. If you're looking to install laminate flooring in upper rooms, you'll need to add a good soundproof base. The Duralay Timbermate Excel base is ideal for this purpose. It's made of high-density foam rubber with an integrated vapor barrier and can reduce sound by up to 23 dB, or around 30%.
The science behind acoustic layers can be complicated, but the main factors that contribute to reducing sound come down to three components: minimizing echoes, reducing noise produced by impacts, and reducing air noise in a room. Installing an acoustic sound reduction layer will help you enjoy a quieter life by reducing the transfer of noise between rooms and floors. The sound-insulated floor layer options available from specialized manufacturers represent a major improvement over standard products. Lower layers for carpets are also not tested for their soundproofing qualities in the same way that soundproofing mats and bases do.
Because of how small and fragile floor tiles can be, you should not place them on soft, padded bases (such as acoustic base layers), as this increases the chance of them cracking and breaking. In the case of carpets, you need a product that is soft but does not touch the bottom, like many of the acoustic base layers on the market. When it comes to choosing an acoustic layer, it's important to know if the floor is made of wood or concrete and what the final finishes of the floor are. If the surface on which you are going to perform the installation is properly leveled and prepared, you can use a thin lower layer of acoustic felt to facilitate sound transmission. By having several layers of different thicknesses and densities, you can smooth out this drop in performance and achieve the best soundproofing with your acoustic base.
This, combined with the MuTeMat range, offers the highest-performance combination of acoustic base layers while keeping the build-up as thin as possible. You may not realize it, but there are many sound-insulated floor covering products available. The best trick is to be prudent: companies that sell carpet substrates for their acoustic insulation qualities indicate a figure in dB, but this figure only shows how much airborne noise is blocked on a concrete floor, of which the lower layer of carpet only represents 5%. The acoustic base for carpets, which is often made of materials such as sheep wool, polyurethane foam and recycled rubber, can be an “ecological” product.
