An impact rating describes a building, not a floor
An impact rating is a property of an assembly: the floor, the structure under it and the ceiling under that. Printed on a product sheet without the assembly, it is a number with nothing to attach to.
The impact rating is what a buyer in a condominium is usually sent to look for, and it is the specification most often quoted with the least attached to it. It is produced by dropping a standard tapping machine on a finished floor in a laboratory and measuring what arrives in the room below. What arrives depends on the floor, on what the floor is sitting on, and on whether there is a suspended ceiling between the two.
An impact rating therefore cannot belong to the plank. The same plank on a bare slab and on the same slab with a drop ceiling underneath produces two very different results, and both results are true statements about the assembly that was tested.
What the release shows
Nine of the 16 products here publish an impact rating. Eight products name the floor-ceiling assembly it was measured on, and one product publishes the number alone.
The spread across the declared figures is 14 points, and the spread is not about the flooring. The lowest figure in this release, 54, was measured on a 6 in concrete slab. The highest, 68, was measured on a 6 in concrete slab with drop ceiling. The difference between those two rows is a ceiling, and a buyer who reads the two numbers as a ranking of planks has attributed to the floor a result that belongs to the building.
The rating published without an assembly is the one that cannot be used. It is not wrong, and it is not withheld. It is simply not interpretable: the quantity belongs to a construction and not to a product, and the construction is missing. It is published with that said beside it instead of dropped, because a reader who meets the same figure on a spec sheet elsewhere deserves to know why it settles nothing.
Every declared impact rating beside the floor-ceiling assembly it was measured on. A rating measured over a drop ceiling and one measured on a bare slab are not two scores for the same thing.
5 columns. The table scrolls sideways inside its own box; the row headings and the column headings stay in place while it does.
| Product | Impact rating | Assembly it was measured on | Airborne rating | Read from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bruce LifeSeal Classic | no declaration | no declaration | no declaration | LifeSeal Rigid Core Flooring — product sheet, rev. WB-1326-N-1119, p. 2 |
| Bruce LifeSeal Trending | no declaration | no declaration | no declaration | LifeSeal Rigid Core Flooring — product sheet, rev. WB-1326-N-1119, p. 2 |
| Ambient SPC Rigid Core 7x48 | 62 | no declaration | 53 | Ambient SPC Rigid Core Luxury Vinyl, Harvest Moon — manufacturer product record and specification table |
| Cali Longboards 9x71 | no declaration | no declaration | no declaration | CALI Vinyl Longboards — specification sheet, p. 2 |
| COREtec Pro Enhanced 7x48 | not collected | not collected | not collected | — |
| COREtec Pro Premium 9x72 | not collected | not collected | not collected | — |
| Karndean Korlok Select 5.87x23.46 | 68 | 6 in concrete slab with drop ceiling | no declaration | Korlok Select Rigid Core Technical Datasheet, rev. 2025-02-10, p. 1 |
| Karndean Korlok Select 8.86x55.91 | 68 | 6 in concrete slab with drop ceiling | no declaration | Korlok Select Rigid Core Technical Datasheet, rev. 2025-02-10, p. 1 |
| Mannington ADURA Rigid 6x48 | 68 | 6 in concrete slab with drop ceiling | 62 | ADURA Rigid Product Technical Information Sheet, rev. 2026-01-01, p. 1 |
| Mannington ADURA Rigid 7x48 | 68 | 6 in concrete slab with drop ceiling | 62 | ADURA Rigid Product Technical Information Sheet, rev. 2026-01-01, p. 1 |
| MSI Andover 7x48 | 54 | 6 in concrete slab | no declaration | Everlife Specification Sheet |
| MSI Cyrus 7x48 | 54 | 6 in concrete slab | no declaration | Everlife Specification Sheet |
| MSI Prescott 7x48 | 54 | 6 in concrete slab | no declaration | Everlife Specification Sheet |
| MSI XL Cyrus 9x60 | 54 | 6 in concrete slab | no declaration | Everlife Specification Sheet |
| Tarkett ProGen 12x24 | no declaration | no declaration | no declaration | ProGen Rigid Core Luxury Vinyl Flooring — Product Specification, p. 1 |
| Tarkett ProGen 7x60 | no declaration | no declaration | no declaration | ProGen Rigid Core Luxury Vinyl Flooring — Product Specification, p. 1 |
Reading the number against a building rule
Building codes and condominium bylaws that set an acoustic minimum set it for the assembly, which is the same object the laboratory measured. A specifier who satisfies a bylaw by quoting a product figure has satisfied it with a result from someone else’s building, and the assembly in the report is the part that has to match.
That dependence is also why the honest form of the field is two columns rather than one. A number and the construction it was measured on can be checked against a bylaw; a number alone can only be compared against another number alone, which is a comparison of two unknown assemblies. Where the maker publishes the assembly, it appears in the cell beside the figure. Where it does not, the cell says so.
What this note does not settle
This note does not tell you what any of these floors will sound like in a real building. Laboratory ratings are measured under controlled conditions on assemblies built for the test, and field results on the same construction routinely differ from them.
The table also leaves out the airborne rating, which measures a separate problem: voices and television through the structure rather than footsteps. Fewer makers still declare it. Where it is declared, it is published on the product page with its own assembly beside it.