MattHooper
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Jeff Joseph designs beautiful loudspeakers, no doubt about it. And they don’t sound half bad either… much better design/value than Wilson, to tie back to the other thread
I don’t usually like seeing speaker drivers. This is because to me most speaker drivers aren’t particularly nice looking. Also on many loudspeakers, it exposes the screws around the driver, which I find unsightly.
But also, because when I see speaker drivers, I can’t help but think of them as the source of the sound. “ that chime and the cymbals and the highs in the flute…. Are coming from those tweeters right there…”
So I generally prefer loudspeakers with the grills on, and which I get more of the impression that all loud speakers are simply a piece of furniture around which the music is occurring that it’s coming from the speakers.
That’s one reason why I like it when a company designs their loudspeakers with the grills in mind. Manufactures usually find a way to make the grills part of the design and fit nice and flush (like my Thiel 2.7 speakers).
For the manufacturer who don’t design for grills on and yet supply grills, they tend to have something of a “ Band-Aid placed over the speaker” vibe IMO.
Joseph, as far as I’m aware, it does not design the speakers to be listened to with the supplied speaker grills. Fortunately they are a pretty nice fit. But more fortunately, Joseph speakers are one of the few whose drivers I actually like the look of. To me the SEAS Excel woofers are one of the cooler looking or spiffy looking drivers. They have a bit of a luxury materials vibe. And I find a tie nicely into the copper ring around the millennium tweeter.
That said, I still have my lighting set up in my listening room such that I can have the grills off the speakers, and choose one of my lighting settings that keeps light on the screen behind the speakers and in parts of the room, but keeps direct light off of the front of the speakers so that the speaker drivers disappear in the dark. So for me, best of both worlds when I want it, without the grill, but also not having to be conscious of speaker drivers if I don’t want.
I know plenty of other, really like seeing all the drivers they can.