Soundproofing a wooden floor

Carpet with thick underlay would be better than any solid floor covering .
Not necessarily, carpets deadens high frequencies within a room but doesn’t stop low frequencies entering the room any better than a hard floor of similar mass. The only thing that stops sound is mass and decoupling as well as sealing any gaps completely
 
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I live in an old Victorian terrace. I want to sound proof a wooden floor to reduce noise from downstairs. It's been suggested I put down a barrier mat, db soundproofing matting 15, tecsound 100 and then engineered wood floor. Does this sound about right and if so recommendations for sourcing the materials? Many thanks
If you can lift the floorboards you could stop reverberations a bit by half filling it with rockwool slabs or even just loft insulation.
Try to seal any holes and gaps in the floorboards especially near the skirting where your barrier mat ends. You can get acoustic mastic like AC45 for sealing gaps flexibly without cracking.
Then add as much mass of different densities as you can afford. Engineered floor is fine imo, though carpet will be quieter for you neighbours downstairs.
You won’t be able to stop sound from downstairs, but you can reduce it.
 
You can get acoustic mastic like AC45 for sealing gaps flexibly without cracking.
The problem with acoustic caulks is that they are limited in the size of gap they can fill (about 6mm horizontal - above that they are prone to fall through under their own weight). If the gap is bigger than 5 or 6mm you either need to fill the gap first with a flexible foam piping such a Fossa Caulk Saver (from a decorators wholesaler) and mastic over that, or just go straight to using a compressed edging tape such as Compraband (which is acoustically rated and expands to fill gaps from about 8 to 35mm)
 
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