In theory, depends on what's under your carpet -- ie, what you would be bypassing the carpet to spike to. Spike a wooden block to a concrete floor (spiking through the carpet, which pretty much takes it out of the equation) and you have a bunch of mass-loading (spike to concrete floor) plus some almost dual-purpose mass-loading / vibration dissipation in the maple. That could work fine. Spike a wooden block through the carpet to a hung wooden floor, and your mass-loading properties are much, much smaller, while the potential for coupling to another resonating surface -- the hung wooden floor -- go way up. Again, could work out OK, but your chances go way, way down. If you just put the maple on the rug naked (as it were), depending on the thickness of the rug, it could be the equivalent of additional isolation. That is, youve got your dual-purpose mass-loading / vibration-dissipation properties in the maple, and then youre floating that on a cushion of air (at whatever ratio of compressed rug-to-air there is under the block, depending on what type of rug were talking about). Very generally, spiking/mass-loading/coupling tend to work better on real solid floors. Like concrete. Equally generally, isolation/vibration-dissipation tends to work better on hung or otherwise potentially-resonate floors. Spiking to a big drum aint likely to help, and isolation/dissipation may be the trick. Most of what spikes-on-floors really do is take a rug out of the mix by going through it.
In practice, you may be able to forget every last word of the prior paragraph. All theory, and dont know that there are any rules. In my experience, trial and error is key but generally the guidelines I start with. If thats any help....
