Speaker grills what do we think

Grilles visually really depend on the speaker. Older speakers have some very ugly driver mountings and grill holes/velcro. New speakers have much more tidy driver mountings and magnetic grilles so they can be very acceptable without.

Sonically they are rarely transparent. But that isn’t always bad. Always find PMCs really need grilles for the first 3 months of run in to tame a hot top end. After that, they sound better without. My current Omegas look lovely without grilles and sound much better too. But little kids… nuf said.

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My old Mordaunt Short MS310’s had what was basically a pair of black tights as grilles. A slot round most of the front baffle took the rubber “belt” sewn around the edge of the fabric. No frame, zero sonic impact, at least none that would be apparent on an inexpensive pair of bookshelves. It was a great solution though.

Seems that you can have it both ways at the same time.
Yamaha couldn’t decide when they made the HS-5, so they made the tweeter with a permanent grille and the woofer (all 5" of it) with out.

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I certainly can’t hear a difference on or off, but I believe they were voiced with grilles on. I leave mine off.

Roger

I notice a real difference with my B&W 802 Nautilus, I take the grilles off for critical listening

Actually it might not be only up to grill’s acoustic characteriscs or material it is made of, but the very driver and tweeter specs as well. I used to have Proac Tab10 Sigs, which I owned for like 2 years, by this time I desperately wanted to listen to them without the grills as they look superb without them, but my little daughter simply would not allow me to leave them with no grills, so I was constantly putting them on during the day and removing them at night when the kid was asleep and I was able to listen to some music.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t tell there was any difference either with or without grills, but now with my Proac D2Rs I clearly can diferentiate the sound on and off grills. Could be due to the more revealing ribbon tweeter, but the difference is quite obvious and grills in both models are most probably identical.

:+1:

Oh my. I am SOOO jealous. I dream of having a pair of these :smiley: :+1:

Come on lottery numbers this week !

Gazza, please do. They are simply the most natural sounding, ‘there’ speaker i have ever heard - if that makes sense !!

But I’m not responsible for what your bank manager says…

We want to move in the next few years……they will get their shout…….i know i will end up there😁

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With the black ash the ATC scm40 looks quite cool, but I have to say they stand out a bit too much with cherry. Therefore I keep them of, unless I forsee reckless guests drinking beer and get all overexited with playing metal LP:s from the eighties…

I never even took the grills for my ES12s out of the box in the 24 years I owned them. But the SL2s look naked without the grill, so they’re staying on

I have ATC SCM 40 as well I do find there is a slight lift in clarity when I remove the grills only slight mind but there. Being black ash finish the grills blend in easily superb speakers by the way

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According to ATC themselves: “The SCM19 and SCM40 are designed for optimum performance with the grill in place – although the difference in performance without the grill is minimal.”

Roger

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The old Warfdales still look great in their Sunday best

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I quite like the white version of the SMC 40’s without the grilles. Mrs Roog wasn’t keen though. So traditional ‘wood’ finish it was.

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