Speaker Grills

[wgscott]

In your experience, do speaker grills in general change or degrade the sound, or are they effectively transparent?

[AudioDoctor]

In my experience, it is speaker dependent whether or not the grill effects the sound positively, negatively, or not at all.

[mav52]

In my experience, it is speaker dependent whether or not the grill effects the sound positively, negatively, or not at all.

 

agree. My Ushers sound better with grills off. My other speakers sound the same with grills on or off. Plus with grills on, there is a little protection during house cleaning.

[AlainGr]

I can't say that I hear a difference whether the grill off or on and I guess this is speaker dependant, but I "feel" it "could" be for the better to remove them when doing critical listening. Since I am biased thinking it best to remove them, I voted "Yes" :-).

[souptin]

Before I started faffing about with computer audio, I'd have said no, no difference. But with a computer & dac, definitely better with them off. Same amp, same speakers but different source. Go figure. Something about the stereo image and the higher frequencies.

 

Sorry, didn't vote - neither option fits for me. My TT and cdp have qualities that are less affected by the speaker grills.

[ecwl]

I agree with AudioDoctor. My Paradigm S2's sound better with the grille on but I've definitely heard other speakers where they sound better with the grille off.

[Musicophile]

B&W CM8, sound clearly better with grill off. And also look much better....

[wgscott]

B&W CM8, sound clearly better with grill off. And also look much better....

 

These are CM7, so presumably it would be similar. My wife told me they looked better with them off, which kind of surprised me.

[Daudio]

These are CM7, so presumably it would be similar. My wife told me they looked better with them off, which kind of surprised me.

 

Bill,

 

So which way sounds better/more accurate to you ?

[AudioDoctor]

I think my Zu Essence sound better with the grills off, but the B&W DM601s sound better with the grills on.

[chg]

I can't imagine grills on would be helpful, unless they were helping to tame some tweeter brightness/harshness. In that case, I would suspect a component issue, or more likely, a tweeter characteristic (usually aluminum dome). If they sound better with them on I would change something, firstly, get rid of the aluminum tweeter. Either way, I prefer to see my drivers, so no grill.

[wgscott]

Bill,

 

So which way sounds better/more accurate to you ?

 

I haven't detected a difference, but I only have listened for a couple of hours with screaming kids and yippie puppies in the background.

[crisnee]

It's grill dependent. But really, the cold beer is the kicker.

 

-Chris

[firedog]

But I leave them on anyway, b/c my tweeters are easy to damage and it is recommended not to touch them at all

[Russell_L]

I also voted for grills off. Anything between your ears and the raw speakers, no matter how "acoustically transparent" the material is claimed to be, will act as a filter. I suppose some speakers could be voiced by the manufacturer with the grills on, but I suspect that most are not. I always take mine off for critical listening and put them back on when not listening (for protection purposes).

 

Russell

[crisnee]

Ever try taking them off Maggies and then replacing them without sending them out for repair?

 

-Chris

[wgb113]

My Paradigms were designed to sound better with the grilles on. My Dynaudios didn't even come with grilles.

 

I preferred my B&Ws with the grilles on and my Vienna Acoustics, Quads and NHTs with them off.

 

Bill

[mwheelerk]

I keep the speaker grills off first because the manufacturer recommends it and second I like the way they look with the grills off.

[Blake]

I always take the grills off of my speakers, with only one exception, my Revel Ultima Gems. The grills on the Gems are genius in design and do not negatively impact the sound quality, and they look cool as well.

[mayhem13]

Well......lots of varying opinions on the subject but some points

 

The Grille material and mounting will determine if there is a change to the soundscape, not the speaker....AND given the fact that no grille material is effectively sonically transparent we can deduce that there is a difference with grilles on or off. It is up to the individual listener to determine if one sounds 'better' than the other.

[Chipper]

Most people will either leave the grills on or off because of looks, not because it sounds any different. My grills stay on because I don't want to accidentally destroy the cone, not because of sound quality differences (if there really is any).

[dave_kiwi]

My father has a pair of large floor standing Keffs - bass port at the bottom / front. Had to leave the speaker grills on as young kittens tended to try and climb in the bass port. (My mother used to breed Siamese cats). Also, the speaker grills made good climbing "poles" as well for forsaid kittens.

 

The speaker grills did get recovered once my mother stopped breeding cats - the cat she has now would never "stoop" to losing his dignity by climbing up the speaker grills. :-)

[mwheelerk]

I just put my speaker grills on for the first time in many years (except for the socks that were over the Magnepan MMG I use to own) and I can tell you one thing for certain...they look different.

[Boris75]

Maybe removing the grills results in better sound quality, but given that my (young) children sometimes confuse my Cabasse Riga speakers with punch balls, I have refrained from testing whether removing the grills improves the sound...

[Bones13]

I think my Zu Audio Essence speakers will be the tiniest bit better without the grills.

 

I have the grills on because of the cat that lived here in my study for many years. He passed this summer, and I have not the heart to remove the grills yet. I will one day, and then I might can tell you if there is any difference. My current music room is very much less than ideal for music though, and I don't know if the difference will be appreciated here.