I’m running a pair of Kudos 505s. I live in a 1970s house with carpet over suspended wooden floorboards. I think the sound is great at the moment but I don’t have the spikes fitted. I have a nagging feeling I should fit them but it will be a bit of a kerfuffle. What sort of SQ gain will I get?
It will most likely tighten up the bass… but can also lean out the bass. May focus the imaging. The only way is to try it out. And it is a PITA, but no other way to know.
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Possibly even better would be spikes on cups, which I have tried and prefer.
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Bear in mind that carpet pearcing spikes actaully protect the carpet. If the speakers are heavy then without spikes, they will leave an indent that may never fully spring back. A speaker on spikes should be pushed firmly down so that it pearces the carpet to come in contact with the floor. That pearching is really just the spike forcing it’s way between the weave. When you move a speaker, there are indeed four visible holes but they can be massaged out by hand.
Without a carpet they sound best on spike cups but with a carpet, the primary goal is to ensure the carpet itself is bearing no load. It should always be speakers > feet assembly (spikes with or without shoes) > floor.
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100% yes. Tightens everything up sound wise. I sit my spikes in cross head screws screwed into the floorboards. A bit fiddly to do but stops the spikes coming loose over time if stuck directly into the wood. If you move the speakers, the holes will disappear as the spikes pierce between the carpet weave.
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The art is in ensuring that the spikes each evenly touch the hard surface under the carpet/underlay, with no wobble (or ‘microwobble’)…only then is when you get the advantage of spikes.
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Ok fellows here’s my situation. My speakers are on stands. They are on top of a vintage Bokhara rug . I’m not using the spikes, because I don’t want to damage the rug. I’ve thought of some kind of cup like these:
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Ultimately try the options and see what works best for you and your system.
My experience has been -
I had the same, carpet over a rather uneven wood subfloor, Acoustic Energy AE1 speakers on their dedicated stands with spikes fitted. Come to think of it I have not considered removing the spikes!
Firstly I tried them sitting on cups which I wasn’t particularly happy with, then without the cups. I tried pushing the spikes as firmly as I could to get a good ‘bite’ but there was always wobble, even with adjusting the height and level of the spikes. I could always feel vibration in the chairs, being transferred from the speaker stands so things weren’t right!!
I put a small set of sorbothane feet between the speakers and the stands and this was a surprisingly big improvement, though the unevenness of the wood floor reminded the main issue. I did consider experimenting with some form of stone/granite/slate type slabs underneath the speaker stands, but didn’t get round to it as we decided to replace the carpet with a 18.5 mm wood floor. There is no more wobble, spikes sitting in cups and everything sounds so much better.
Hopefully your wood floor is even and not like mine!
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Some people screw a Phillips / Pozidrive / Crosshead screw through the carpet into the wooden floor, then stand the spikes in the recess on top of the screw.
DG…
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100% this huge uplift in SQ always done it my rack and stands.
No visible damage and easy to move speakers for cleaning etc and they go exactly back in place. 
Anything not directly coupled will lose something.
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Surely these would damage the rug far more than spikes, which would ease their way through the weave ?
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Those look like Herbie’s small gliders and they’re great when you’re experimenting with positioning. I used them on a tiled floor intending to replace with Fraim chips once I had the positions but they’ve to stayed in place and I think to no ill effect. I’ve used the brass and titanium versions of which I prefer the latter with my NBLs. I probably would remove them on carpet but they’re not that dear and very convenient for making millimetric adjustments. I’m wary of the thicker ones, the non gliding bases I tried under my unsuspended turntable did in no favours.
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I use Herbie’s decoupling gliders (standard size and brass) beneath the spikes on my rack that sits on a vinyl covering on top of a suspended wooden floor. Well worth a punt for £83 including shipping.
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Herbie gliders here too. Like them 
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Another option – albeit more expensive – might be to try the isoAcoustics Gaia isolation feet with the carpet cups.
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The question that I would ask myself about all of these devices is: is the speaker cabinet kept still in space, so that the drivers do all of the intended moving?
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Spikes through the carpet onto brass plates epoxy glued to suspended wooden floor…
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That’s what a friend of mine did and the results were excellent, I’m quite familiar with the setup so I witnessed first hand. Way more expensive than the Herbie’s, but still not outrageously priced.
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