Grilles-on please

flez007

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Avalon speakers are designed to be played with its grilles ON at all times, I have seen/heard some Avalons where grilles are not placed and many of its sonic attributes disappear at the sake of a more "transparent" sound.

I am not sure if there is other speaker that needs to be "dressed" as a fundamental part of its design.
 

Steve Williams

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Avalon speakers are designed to be played with its grilles ON at all times, I have seen/heard some Avalons where grilles are not placed and many of its sonic attributes disappear at the sake of a more "transparent" sound.

I am not sure if there is other speaker that needs to be "dressed" as a fundamental part of its design.

I find that very interesting and wonder why it should sound better with grill covers on
 

flez007

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This has to do with the difraction pattern of the cabinets Steve, when grilles are removed from my Ascents for example, center image is vague and out of control, this is particulary critical at higher frequencies.

Avalon grill frames have a 1cm thick of absorvent material, with holes just the size of the drivers to "tame" uneven difraction behaviour of its drivers.
 
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amirm

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The grill probably filters a bit of high frequencies. So if a speaker is designed with that, and you take it off, it might sound a bit brighter.

I have not heard of other theories on this.
 

Bruce B

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The grill probably filters a bit of high frequencies. So if a speaker is designed with that, and you take it off, it might sound a bit brighter.

Oh, like tissue paper on a pair of NS-10's!
 

mep

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The grill probably filters a bit of high frequencies. So if a speaker is designed with that, and you take it off, it might sound a bit brighter.

I have not heard of other theories on this.

I agree with Amir.
 

JackD201

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There are quite a few speakers out there designed to have the grills on or even totally cloth covered. Vandersteens, early VSAs not to mention the slew of excellent vintage loudspeakers like ARs, Rogers, Spendors and the like. Many Accuton/Thiel based loudspeakers come with the metal mesh grills too.
 

Kal Rubinson

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I find that very interesting and wonder why it should sound better with grill covers on

It depends on how the speaker was designed and whether it was "voiced" with the grille on or off. I always ask the company and, usually, there is definite answer. Sometimes, they say it doesn't matter but, as we know, it almost always is.
 

es347

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Kal is 100% right on this one. I asked my speaker manufacturer that question specifically regarding how the speakers were voiced. He said grills on and it does make a difference for sure.
 

flez007

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I was told that some Avalon owners cut the grill just where the drivers are placed but leave the grilles on in order to follow the instructions manual suggestions, while I respect their choice I can't imagine how weird this may look :)
 

MM622

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I’ve done some experiment, for me it depends on how close I’m sitting with the speaker. If I sit more far away, take out the grilles has better sound for me. But if I sit more near to the speaker, I prefer to put the grilles on, it sounds more natural, not too bright and aggressive. So my personal thinking is it depends on the user’s listening area, how far with the speaker.
 

amirm

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Thanks for resurrecting this thread MM622 as I had collected some additional data on this since the thread was created. My goal was to test the impact of "acoustically transparent" screens which were claimed to make no difference at all. While I was at it, I also tested the effect of the speaker grill itself. Here are the results:



The top lime green graph is without anything. The black is the speaker's own grill. The "2K" and "4K" are the two projection screens.

Beside the roll off in highs, there is mid-frequency cancellation caused by reflections between the grill and drivers. Slanting the grill and or distancing it sharply reduces the impact. But if it is close, it unfortunately impacts the sound negatively even when well designed as that speaker grill is. This caused me to not put a screen in front of my speakers even though it looks a lot better that way (for home theater).

P.S. This is with an uncalibrated mic and in an empty room. So don't go buy the overall graph but rather, the difference between them.
 

flez007

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Interesting plot Amir, I wonder if the differences fall into the audible spectrum.
 

amirm

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I was very surprised by how audible the panels were. More so than the graph implies. The impact on the mid-range worried me the most.

My ears kind of got trained on it in that when we first got the fabric for the screen, it was not stretched. Putting it in front of a range of speakers made an amazing difference (negatively). We gave the feedback to the manufacturer and they sent us a stretched one. That removed 75% of the difference but it was still there. The Revel grill made the least difference but it was still audible. Once I had heard the extreme case of it, maybe it made it easier to hear the difference even when the impact was much smaller. BTW, the differential for the worst case is about 3 dB.
 

flez007

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That's audible!

Referring just to my experience with Avalon speakers grills, they include as part of its design absorbing material that I beleive controls some directional pattern, particullary on the high frequencies radiation behaviour, so they play a two-fold role here.
 

andromedaaudio

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JA from stereophile measured the indra with and without , at 7 khz the difference can get into the 5 db range , definetively designed to be used with , otherwise the tweeter will be to hot sounding .
Ps this was a (semi) anechoic measurement, and the cloth is filled with felt , hence the big difference compared with amirims graph i assume
One can also see the tweeter breaking up at around 25 khz
http://www.stereophile.com/content/avalon-acoustics-indra-loudspeaker-measurements

Ps ive tried it on my own designs , focus improved , but i found it somewhat dull sounding
 
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