Even if my speakers would sound better without their grilles, I prefer to leave them on for aesthetic reasons. Plus, I find that seeing the drivers makes me think about what they are doing, which distracts me from the material I am playing, and that isn't good.

Speaker grills can change the sound more than changing your power cable can do! Unfortunately, if you have small kids, their fingers can change the sound of your fragile tweeters more than anything else...

Yap. I keep my grills on speakers all the time,... except i listen to the music. That is why i like magnetic grills. Grills not just softens the high-end, but reduces transparency and imaging. It really does not matter if you listen in the background, but if you opened a bottle some fine wine, and you are home alone, grills can steal you pleasure... Paul is absolutely correct. Grills are not acoustically transparent, and i really do not care to what degree, make them out of plywood if you want, it is a bad idea to listen with them on from the beginning.

I have measured the frequency response of my speakers with them on/off, there is a difference, usually not more than 2dB (in small regions, not throughout the treble), but it can be audible during A/B. I leave them on though, as it’s not a very audible difference. The baffle diffraction is something I haven’t measured, but that’s likely even more harmful.

I am so glad someone brought this up as I recently removed the socks from my Magnepan MMGs, and presto, EVERYTHING SOUNDED BETTER! Small details that were once hidden suddenly appeared and also sound staging improved as well.

This is probably the only audio channel on youtube where I learn stuff about hifi ! I think it's because Paul has this real technical background that most of the people don't have. It's the difference between science (experience and knowledge) and fiction (placebo and false ideas). Great job !!

Thanks for the comments on Focal; I always wondered what you thought about them. I just recently purchased the 1038 be & 1008 cc be, I think they're awesome. I remember you saying put the most money in speakers and that's what I did. Also you're recommendation on REL was great too, I bought the S/3 a few months ago. Very happy with my purchases, thanks for all your great videos!

Finally, someone to give me a straight answer! Thank you! 😊

Paul I agree with your advice to remove the grills in the vast majority of cases. Though I can think of two loudspeakes which were designed with the grilles as an integral part of the speaker cabinet. Firstly the Infinity Renaissance 80/90. As you're probaly aware, the grilles for the Rens were essentially designed as an extension of the cabinet & were made of a sheet of mdf (or similar) material with cutouts for the High Energy Emit & Emim drivers, allowing the midrange and tweeter to sit flush with the grille cloth. Also, the edge of the grille was angled to meet the curved front baffle to minimize diffraction & enable higher frequencies to travel unimpeded to the rear where they were disspiated. That worked very well with the tranmission line midrange. I previously owned a pair of Ren 90's, and my ears told me they worked. Avalon use a similar concept. It's a different, but equally valid approach to cabinet design.

My ELAC B5 speakers have two grills. A cloth grill for the outside and a metal grill for the tweeter. I removed both and found that the infamous recessed high end known of elac speakers wasn’t so recessed anymore. I actually notice some nice sparkle when I listen to movies or music whereas before it was mostly mids.

How's this for an experiment: I put on a favorite album of my wife's (who is very skeptical of all of this stereo stuff). In the middle of a song I asked her to close her eyes and when she did, I got up, popped off the speaker covers and before I could sit down she said, "oh wow! what did you do?" The speaker grills go off every time the music goes on.

Learn something new every time I watch Paul

Another super-clear explanation.

my grills are off for listening, and installed when not for a dust cover...thanks Paul

Good info, although I wish he had discussed foam grilles as well as cloth. No doubt both do restrict sound frequencies to some degree, although to each his own as to what one can and cannot hear. I have an old set of Marantz Imperial 7 speakers that originally came with foam grilles. They were beautifully sculpted with pyramidal squares and added eye candy to the walnut cabinets. Of course over time they disintegrated and I replaced them with grille cloth. I never paid attention to any sound difference. The foam I believe used then and is used now for grilles, is Reticulated Polyurethane Foam. It is an open cell foam and comes in PPI ranges (pores per inch) from 10-100. The smaller the number the bigger the pores or openings between the "webbing" of the foam. This same foam is used as filters for numerous products, hence higher the PPI number, better the filter. Speaker foam is usually between 20-40 PPI., so you could indeed say, foam could filter some sound out. I tried to find any testing that has been conducted with foam grilles, but no luck. I have searched for years to hopefully come across some "preserved" original Marantz Imperial 7 foam grilles, but nothing out there worth anything. There is a small company called foamspeakergrilles.com that makes replacement foam grilles for many vintage speakers. However, they do not make the original Imperial 7 foam grilles, they have another grille they substitute for it, but it is not the same design as the originals. So, I am on a mission to get some foam and recreate the original Imperial 7 foam grilles with my handy electric carving knife doing all the cutting and sculpting. Wish me luck.

That was a good video !,I use to pop my grills off for my polk audio monsters 32 speakers system.370 pounds of speakers/carver amp pre-amp.

Uv rays can eat up some materials on speakers, but Paul is correct .

My old B&W 603 s3 speakers have the same problem. The CM10 s2 speakers I noe have, have the tweeter on top so you don't really notice the speaker cloth anymore because only the woofers and midrange are behind it. If you calibrate your setup with a good DSP and a measurement microphone, you can compensate for that.

Good info. Thanks!

Very informative. You are correct. Grills protect, off for listening 👍

thanks paul

Excellent demo talking through the grille cloth. Effect can be easily heard with the speaker of my cellphone. Yet also many speakers are designed to have the front on and compensate for it. My Sonus Faber Guarneri Homage sound best with their front strings attached in my opinion. My other speakers (SF Liuto tower) sound best without their cloth. Main purpose of all front cloths is making speakers visually acceptable - very few are designed to look well without the front

I have a pair of B&W 804 Matrix speakers that are pretty damn badass! For those of you who may not be familiar with the design of the 804's please let me enlighten you with what they look like and how they are designed. B&W played it super smart with these speakers because they mounted the Tweeter enclosure on the top of the speaker separated completely from the mid-range and the bass drivers. There's no speaker grill whatsoever going across the Tweeter of the speaker. Just a protective mesh. If it doesn't matter about the woofer having a speaker grill on and the mid-range driver as well then buy extension there's no need for me to remove my speaker grill because once again the Tweeter is mounted on the top of the speaker completely separate from the baffle and the front of the speaker completely. B&W mounted the Tweeter separated on top of the speaker for much more spacious and open overall speaker sounding system.

paul, a agree wholeheartedly about frill cloths. my favorite statement on the subject is : "i never med a grill cloth that i liked'" ok, exception-magneplanars which are plug ugly without them (i have not removed the pesky bastards from my MMGs). i asked richard vandersteen the question and he stated that on the IICE for instance, where the cloth is set away from the drivers, the sock doesn't impart enough difference to be worth removiing it. the crux of my questions was that i feel that the cloth causes minute reflections between the driver and it. i have alway felt that speakers open up in the soundfield and airiness aspects enough to make it worthwhile removing the grill and most of my peers agree. ...hifitommy

How about Vandersteens that were voiced for the grill cloth? I have heard many and own the 2ce Signature ii’s and the presentation is open with a clean and clear top end.

It depends on the specific cover of your speaker. Some old ones have a plastic structure design that DOES damage sound quality, but newer ones have a better plastic structure that doesn’t block sound waves.

Depends on the speaker design. LS3/5As, for example, were voiced with a very specific grille material - Tygan. If you take off the grilles on an LS3/5A you are outside of BBC specification. In every individual case, it's important to ask the speaker manufacturer how they are intended to be voiced. Go away from that and it's a question of personal preference, rather than close adherence to the original design concept.

The manual for my Graham Audio LS 5/9 monitor speakers says to keep the grill=cloth on, I think all bbc speakers are designed that way! And they sound better that way, although the difference is not huge.

I dont think I ever seen a recording studio anywhere in the world with cloth/grill on speakers... even NS-10's didn't have any. Probably done for home speakers as childproof to protect cones :)

I've heard a lot of speakers over the years, and the differences I've heard in grille cloths had been wildly variable -- but always better without, even for low budget speakers. Some grilles I've heard have made only a very small difference, all the way up to a pair of small Tannoy speakers I have now where removing the grilles sounds like taking a sack off my head. PS: Thanks for the videos Paul, I enjoy them.

My Rogers Studio 1 monitors are designed to be used with the grilles on. Rogers obviously took them into account in the design process. I imagine that most serious manufacturers will have done the same.

Precious Paul

Back in the day, I always thought grills were there to protect the speaker drivers, especially the speakers that had what seemed to be paper woofers.

Hmmm... I do think it depends on your setup,room and your listening distance. I have a pair of Klipsch Cornwall IIIs driven by McIntosh amplification. My room acoustics are on the warm side. McIntosh amps in general are also warm sounding,..With the grilles off, the mids and highs are a bit too forward/intense for me. It's a matter of what your prefer. It's really just another way you can tune the sound to your liking.

Grills are probably there to protect against kids pushing in tweeters or drawing on the speaker drivers. Dust is easy to wipe off so it's probably not for dust proofing speakers and many speakers look great without grille clothes on, especially the ones with unique wood patterns.

The issue with the IRS V's and the same with my IRS IIIa's is that the Emits are open. Meaning dust and such can actually land on the diaphragm. When rebuilding one you would be shocked how much dirt and grime is inside.

I've always called them Mufflers.

I have the first generation Focal 714’s and the grills that are on them cover everything other than the tweeter.

with the grills on the speakers sound much better and smooth, even the 1 " grill frame also make a difference to the sound. like you get a whole package sound, like the sound comes from the whole rectangle of the box its clear and sound good. without the grill its direct hit you get, its bit of harsh and straight. individual choice after all.

Do what the manufacturer recommends. If they had the speaker crossover set to take in mind the grill, then it will be better that way - or at least closer to the frequency response curve published.

Good answer, but do they maybe have a function for sound dispersion (for more extremely directional speakers in smaller rooms) ?

I had suspicions... good to know

i never thought about this i used grill cloth to tame my tweeters thanks 4 the info

I am using some really thin fabric on mine that is very acoustically transparent. I often find a bit of top treble loss with thicker grilles. Though sometimes the upper midrange is also softened, which is quite nice, but the top treble clarity loss is not great. With this fabric, it took quite a few folds to get significant treble loss and even then it wasn't much worse than regular grilles. I also put minimal grille frame over the tweeter horn. I'm effectively listening on PA speakers though, which sound fairly nice after 28 band EQ but are not the premium fidelity speakers an audiophile would choose, though if you're a vintage Klipsch fan you'd probably like them. I suppose if you are elderly and deaf you won't hear much difference.

i agree in most cases , there are exceptions however , bbc ls3/5a go out of spec when the grilles are removed , you can adjust the high pass internally if you really want to use them without the grille, but they actually lose some dispersal and scale and the speaker location becomes more obvious whereas with the grilles on the ls3/5a becomes undetectable within the sonic picture . same with vintage leak and wharfedales .

On my center channel removing the cloth grill does make modest dialogue more articulate so I keep it off for all speakers.

I'm not sure my Spica SC-50's sound right without the foam grill but now the grill has deteriorated to the point where they fell off. My Cizek One's do sound better as they have foam on the baffle board but that is going too. My Acoustats have a very open weave cloth so they don't mess up the sound too much and its not removable.

I have some marantz imperial 7s and the foam grill cloth makes it sound a lot more muffled

Good point, I only keep the grills on speakers for protection when I'm not listening.

Just out of curiosity; the first videos I saw on "Ask Paul" was the series on rebuilding music room one in your old facility. I noticed that you had a pair of Magnepans in there. Did you ever remove the grill cloths from those speakers as well?

2:06 I think that's the best answer to the question :D

I would say, when listening daily background music, leave the grill on! When doing some serious music session, take them off (and check state and dust before)! Greetings, Marc

It all depends on perfection of low range. Most small and very good made speakers below 20 cm in not ported box will fight for equal level of bass. They would gain if their mid range would be a bit diminished. I have speakers 16 cm - they have lovely upper band, can work to 9kHz but upper found prevailing a bit over lower rest and loosing reality . For this case I did for low toners dumping cloth with premeditation .Listening tests confirm it is right. For speakers having ports and lifted bass level it could be wrong. At the same time I secured tweeters with separate solid grid - eye dimension 5 mm so tweeters can be easily seen through . Be aware also this - such grid reflects sopranos as well and it is highly important distance between such thing and diaphragm. Anyway after making it complies to my rest.

Hi Paul - I own a pair of Harbeth's Super HL5 PLus and I believe these are an example of a company saying they were designed to be played with the grills on (to the point where it is virtually impossible to get them off without a magnet). Have you ever own any Harbeths and did you notice a difference in sound?

On some grills a small amount of refraction can occur also.

Hey Paul, What would you do if you are setting up a home theater? Would you get an AT screen or place the speakers outside of the screen and underneath it?

I have a pair of Magnaplanar 1.7s. As far as I know the grill cloth is integral to the speaker and not removable. I assume this is to protect the the mylar membrane from accidental damage and/or for aesthetics. I previously had a pair of dynamic speakers that I usually played with the covers off. I do think the sounded somewhat better that way.

You've told us you've used Acoustat electrostatics in the past and I'd be surprised if you were able to remove the grille material from them as they tend to be a stocking. I know my Spectra 6600s's grille is like that so I know I wouldn't be able to remove it. I'm sure Acoustat wanted to be sure that the grille couldn't be removed for safety's sake with those very high voltages present.

Just a tiny bit of conjecture on the point of it always being better with the grill off; I mounted speakers in my car and the highs from the tweeter was downright unpleasant. Since it was a coaxial and part of 4 a speaker system I didn't want to change the EQ to try to compensate, so in stead I experimented with blocking some of the sound from the tweeter alone with cloth. Worked as I had hoped and my shitty car stereo no longer has ear piercing highs.

It seems the grill frames (vice the cloth) would be the biggest offenders. If having the speakers not recessed, flat, protruding from the speaker front surface is desirable toward reducing surface reflections or interfering with and limiting off-axis responses, then it seems having plastic or wood frames around all the edges would be a substantial alteration. Many of them are way off the surface plane. Some speakers even use curved fronts to take the edges off speaker fronts to limit effects. So cloth aside, the edging may be the real culprit!

can I ask why then is speakers built with grills ?

hello, I'm Jorge from Miami, florida, your channel is very good, I need an answer, I have to change the height of the turntable arm between a lp of 180 and a regular one

Anyone know of a source for the loose black fabric that appears at the start of this video?

Hi Paul, I have enjoyed your videos, however I believe most of the questions you get could be answered with "You Tell Me". If it Does Sound Better it is better. If the person has to question you or anyone else it probably does not sound better. Thanks

So since my tweeters are 104 dB sensitive and my woofers 85 dB then the grill cloth will soften my tweeters a bit, but they will still be bright enough. Am I right?

My speakers go grill-less all of the time. Look's best and sounds best. 🔊👍🏻

I think speakers sound better with the grill covers off, however I leave mine on at all times. It has been years since I last listened to music with the grill covers removed.

I wouldn't get anything done if i had those speakers.... I'd just sit and admirer them 24-7 lol

Same question for a metal mesh in front of my monitor audio gx200 speakers. To be honest, i have them on for safety

And what about the frame for that fabric, isnt it possible that this raised obstacle dampens the spacial impression of mid and high frequencies by framing the chasis? At least there is a chance sharp edges of the frame cause some kind of resonance.

Interesting.

I keep mine on. What I don’t quite understand is that most everyone says Focal can be a little bright and then when they show their Focals the speaker grill is off. Wouldn’t having the grill on reduce the brightness?

I prefer some sort of protection. You never know what might happen Example- My nephew was playing my electric drums thru my Pa. All the sudden he stopped and tried to jam the drum stick in between the metal grill of the15 inch driver. I am glad it did not fit... after I verbally dressed him down, I have a feeling he won’t try to do it again.

Much like others I keep the grills on EXCEPT when I am listening to music. I found it keeps grand kids from sticking the fingers in the speakers. Years ago they would dent the center cap in the cones, leave the grills on it stopped it. Out of sight out of mind.

i was curios; i got a subwoofer that came with grill cloth on it, can i remove it?

Sadly I have to resort to securing the grills on my Kef R300 using electricians tape thanks to my beautiful daughter. Last year I came home to my Kef Q300 drivers with an opening like a cat flap and thought it was time to upgrade. I have no idea how tall Paul is, I thought about 5’ 7” but now I’m thinking at those speakers makes him look shorter than he actually is

As a manufacturer to either design them to be listened to with the grills on or the grills off and the listeners should start with them how the designer intended then try it without and see what you like best.

If the manufacturer voiced the speakers for optimal sound with the correction for the grills, then removing the grills is not always a good idea.

All speakers should be designed with secure grills bless you are designing for the 2% as the rest of us have pets and children

It’s grilles, not grills. Grills are for barbecuing, grilles are a decorative cover.

well, im transfering this video to my wife. she hates the look of the speakers without those damn cloth craps. i hate the high range with the cloth crap on. and i also prefer the looks when you can see the drivers.

Grills on speakers blurs the transients as they work like a diffraction grill for HF waves. Grills' filaments redirect the HF waves delaying them in time and making them cancelling each other due to the wave interference law. So the result is unfocused sound stage depth. So it's always better without them.

Yes and no. It depends how thick the grill cloths are. In the AZ desert it’s extremely dusty, and grill cloth protect the drivers. I leave them on until I listen to them. And no you’re not crazy. As far as Focal drivers are concerned, who cares where they came from. They are awesome!

How about unremovable metal grill covers they use in some speakers?

Somewhat a sticky question. There are those who swear "grills off" all the time no matter what. I think that is narrow and too absolutest to be practical. Yes, grills do make a notable difference, I could hear it even in this video. However, it also depends on the material. Of course nothing will be as transparent as no grills, but some grills are a bit more transparent than others. In fact, there are some speakers (although few) that are designed to sound better with grills on. Also if one has speakers that are severely tilted up or bright, the grills (again depending on material) can tame them without necessarily rolling off or softening too much high frequencies. Personally, I have always been a grills on person. They don't make much difference that is detrimental (at least the ones on my speakers) and they keep out dust and many contaminates in the home such as tiny food particles and such from cooking and whatnot that happen to be sticky, don't really want that landing on my cones and such. That's just my take though. One down side is that grills do collect dust and that does in fact also make a subtle difference in sound if it builds up, however a gentle vacuuming of the grills on occasion takes care of that.

I have original Quad ESL speakers with the metal grilles (which absolutely need to be removed prior to playing them!) and have read that they can be "deadly" when used without their grilles on. Is this true? I ran them "grille-less" for years, but I did not have any Kids or Kitties to worry about. If there are any Quad experts out there; is it true that you can get a lethal shock if you touch under the grille, the only metal I recall under the grilles are 4 small screw heads. I have a pair that I was thinking of taking out of retirement this Fall, but I now have two little kitties so I'll need to know.

Knew it :)

I purchased some used Technics SB-P1030 speakers and they didn't come with the grille, and I am thinking about getting some because the highs are too bright.

Don’t have them, except on my bass drivers . Martin Logan Electrostatics,

At 72 years old, nothing sounds the way it should. I keep the grilles on for protection. If a speaker is going to get damaged, I'll be the one to do it.

My B&W 804's are much more aesthetically pleasing with the grill on then with them off!

Paul's New Line of Audio Speakers: Nekkid Audio "We Bare ALL!!!...for Your Listening Pleasure! 😂😂😂

I must be a shitty audiophile since i somehow slightly dislike the VISUAL of the drivers, over the smooth appearance of a grill. So I havent done enough listening ONLY testing of with/without...yet. Something to add about the comparisons Paul made about 'overdo something X' to compensate for the end effect - one place it DOES work, and since its in the AV world- for some 3D movie formats, the visuals are engineered with higher brightness or overdone gamma settings to account for the drop in brightness when the glasses go on. It works and helps. TO lift the glasses on some scenes will show TOO MUCH white and lighting ,even being uncomfy. Good example - Pacific Rim. Esp the holographic HUD scenes, they are crazy bright. Check it out.

Grill on, for minimizing dust as a casual listener. 10% time off when I have the mode.

Can't do it. First because I use them all the time, since my system is attached to this gaming pc. And, B; they're ADS speakers with the very sticky tweeters/mids and I have two dogs and a cat. No way am I looking forward to picking off every bit of hair that would become stuck very quickly if I took off the grills. Thankfully it's in near-field, so the loss is negligible.

some speakers were designed with grilles on, like the BBC LS3/5A

It's like placing a 2uF capacitor across the tweeter

Interesting video, but I probably don't qualify as an audiophile as I don't notice a huge difference. I do love my old (original) JBL L100 Century speakers, from my student days. Another commenter below shared an image of the cool foam eggcrate grills they came with, in 3 colors: www.soundandvision.com/images/styles/600_wide/public/101012_JBL%20L100%20Century%20speaker.jpg As a toddler, my daughter enjoyed pushing into the foam with a tiny finger when she passed by, and after several years of that I had to replace them with fabric grills. I've recently come into some foam from JBL and want to restore the grills, but need some of the loose black fabric that appears at the start of this video, and can not find a source after an extensive online search. :(

Why I won't buy ELAC speakers. Ever see the amount of area their tweeter grills cover over the tweeters? At least 50%. Prolly why they sound a bit muddy to most.

I gotta keep them on with cats and children around.