Does carpet deaden the sound too much?

Does the carpet affect the overall sound (matter)?
I expect it does affect the overall sound, as others have shared.

In a positive or negative manner, well that's for you to determine.

I've had  close to the same system in 2 different  rooms. One with hardwood floors and plaster walls and the other with wall to wall carpeting and drywall. Both rooms can be set up to sound very good. Hardwood floor room had a more live show feel to it. Kind of like a bar/venue. Where the carpeted room let's you hear a lot more details and subtle nuances in the recording. Hardwood floor gives a lot of songs that live room feel where as carpet and drywall let's you hear more of where the music was actually recorded. I tend to like more absorptive rooms over live. I just get so much more emotion from the recording. But I totally get liking one over the other. No wrong answer here. Enjoy what YOU like!

No, carpets are fine, the total room balance matters.

That nails it.

I have wall to wall deep shag rug in my listening room.  Also heavy velvet curtains at points, and a fabric treated ceiling.

I sit about 7 feet from my speakers.  Sounds far from dead.  The acoustics of the recording just takes over my room.

If you’re going to err on one side or the other...to me...over-damping is preferred. At least you’ll have some coherence.

In almost all cases, carpet is good to have. Only time it’s not...is if the room is overly damped...which in most cases is never the problem. In my experience, rooms are typically under-damped.

Best to treat all the frequencies evenly with a balance of diffusion and absorption.

I read this different and perhaps I have come to the wrong idea. But here it goes. I am thinking that perhaps the speakers are sitting on the carpet without spikes etc. Anytime I have just looked a set of speakers down they sound dead. I have had numerous things u set speakers cement sidewalk blocks under Maggie's, two inch think hardwood under box speakers spikes down to the floor and feet between the speakers and wood blocks. I have had steel leveling plates with hardwood blocks between the plates and the speakers. When I set a pair of speakers with down firing ports in my home theater setup. They sounded dead. I went out to my garage and picked up a couple of pieces of plywood set the speakers on the plywood much better life again. Lol that reminds me  I need to make a proper pair of hardwood plates to set those on and the beats will sing more beautifully than before. 

As I was thinking that he maybe talking about suck out because the speakers are not decoupled from the carpet. Just a thought. 

Regards Tom