grills on or off

[ta240]

Do you prefer the grills on or off on your speakers? For sound or appearance reasons?

Do speaker designers typically design for grills or no grills?

 

[Zedly]

I keep mine on mainly for protection, to keep dust and other objects away from the drivers.

 

[Martin]

My Von Schweikert VR-4 Gen III speakers have non-removable socks covering their ugly time-aligned innards. I think the speakers themselves are good looking.

Martin

 

[Aerith Gainsborough]

Grills are always off when I use them for both sonic and aesthetic purposes.
They are always on when I don't use them for protection. I live in a very small apartment, so bumping into the speakers is a real danger.

 

[mansr]

Off for appearance. I don't think having a barbecue on top of the speakers would look very good. Or was the question about grilles?

 

[Thomas savage]

Off for appearance, though I feel better about things without them on sound wise lol

 

[rgpit]

Depends on whether the manufacturer designed or voiced them for use with grills on or off.

 

[HemiRick]

I prefer them off appearance and sonically. (no actual sonic diff percieved)

 

[MZKM]

On for protection.

 

[Alexanderc]

I keep mine on mainly for protection, to keep dust and other objects away from the drivers.

Same here. Objects like children’s fingers, dogs’ tails….

 

[Alexanderc]

Off for protection.

Eh?

 

[levimax]

I saw this graph from Stereophile for my speakers.... 4 db variation with grills on!.... I have left grills off ever since.

 

[MZKM]

Eh?

Meant on.

 

[Alexanderc]

Meant on.

I figured it was a joke, but I didn’t get it

 

[MZKM]

I saw this graph from Stereophile for my speakers.... 4 db variation with grills on!.... I have left grills off ever since.

Here’s mine on vs off:

Some grilles are really poorly built.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

I saw this graph from Stereophile for my speakers.... 4 db variation with grills on!.... I have left grills off ever since.

It's not as scary as it looks. Those bumps and dips are reflections off of the grill frames. If you measure at various angles off axis, those deviations will shift in frequency and tend to cancel each other out. Although I'm sure it's possible to engineer a grill that actually degrades the overall response, most grills will have little or no effect. Or at least I couldn't hear any difference when I had a friend attach and reattach the magnetic grills on my BMR while I was blind folded. This is also Floyd Toole's opinion on the audible effects of grills.

 

[richard12511]

It's not as scary as it looks. Those bumps and dips are reflections off of the grill frames. If you measure at various angles off axis, those deviations will shift in frequency and tend to cancel each other out. Although I'm sure it's possible to engineer a grill that actually degrades the overall response, most grills will have little or no effect. Or at least I couldn't hear any difference when I had a friend attach and reattach the magnetic grills on my BMR while I was blind folded. This is also Floyd Toole's opinion on the audible effects of grills.

This test was actually my first blind listening test. I had my friend add/remove them and then replay the song. We were testing for preference(not to see if I could hear the difference), so I had to choose one, but it was much more a guess than a true choice.

 

[edechamps]

My Genelec 8030s have very sturdy metal grilles that cannot be removed. I like this approach: it makes the speaker virtually indestructible (liquids being perhaps the only exception), and it completely sidesteps the question of the impact of the grille on sound quality, since there's no doubt you're using the speaker the way it was measured.

 

[sergeauckland]

On in my case. I've equalised the 'speakers to be accurate with grilles on, as I prefer the look that way.

Some 'speakers, like most BBC inspired designs and the KEF 104.2, are designed to be used with grilles one. Grilles off is a fashion statement as far as I'm concerned.

S

 

[RPG]

Grills off (Revel F208) for aesthetic reasons. Interestingly, my artist wife also prefers the look of grills off. We only put them on if there are any younger kids visiting.