How Do You Listen-Grill Covers On Or Off

[still-one]

I keep the grille covers on the tweeters and woofers and leave the mid range drivers uncovered. I really don't want to be looking at those large woofers all the time.

 

[rockitman]

No covers on mine. I agree about the woofers, with the grills on the speakers visually disappear better, but I feel based on sitting 10' from them, they sound better w/o the grills. Back when the new tweeter came out and the x-2.2 tweeter was deemed unworthy by the Wilson critics, I laughed and put the cover on the tweet so as not to draw attention...lol. Of course I didn't really care and proceeded to keep the covers off and in their bags, save for the bass grills.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

grill covers off, upstairs in plastic bags in storage.

if my system was in the main living area my wife would have a say in this question, but with a dedicated room there is simply no reason to even waste time thinking about it. the performance is slightly better grills off. and the speakers disappear sonically better with the grills off.

the front fascia of the MM7 bass towers is black, as are the 8 15" drivers, so using grill covers on those has little visual benefit. and it's many times fun for a visitor to be hearing crazy levels of dynamic impact and high levels of deep bass and be able to observe just how little driver excursion there is.

much of my listening is done in low light with the speakers back lit anyway, so the visuals of seeing drivers is minor, and with -4- 7 foot tall towers if I was worried about seeing speakers........well....grill covers are simply not an issue.

my Accuton ceramic drivers all have metal screens built into the driver castings which are permanent.....there are 12 of those on the MM7's. I know from my Kharma-Tenor days just how fragile those ceramic drivers are. it's the price you pay for extreme stiffness and extreme light weight.

 

[CSG]

On always. I don't like the look of naked speakers and I can't hear any difference in any event. Life is much easier with silver ears instead of golden ears.

 

[Tony Lauck]

Focal Twin 6be, shipped with no grills covers, so listen with no grill covers.
Focal sub 6, shipped with grill. No reason to take grill off sub woofer and don't want to kick it by mistake, so listen with grill cover.

Note: on the flat settings, these speakers were far too bright listening near field in my room. In voicing them I used the back panel controls to get a gradual roll off, shelving at -3.5 dB at 10 khz as measured at the listening position.

 

[alfa100]

"Life is much easier with silver ears instead of golden ears. "

I like this phrase.

 

[hifitommy]

with nearly every speaker i have listened to, the sound is more wide open with the grills OFF. i always try both ways except for the maggie MMGs i have. i only WISH they were easy to get off the speakers butnooooooooooooooooooo, so i live with the grills on this speaker, but all others so far have sounded noticeably better and especially more open. i don't know if the latter factor can be measured or that anyone has figured out a meaningful way to measure it..

i have had many a friend that thought i was nuts before actually trying the grills off that all realized the truth to it. even speakers that have been purportedly designed for the grill to be left in place. but i am always willing to learn.