Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners To grille or not to grille?

I have the feeling this has been previously discussed here, but I can't seem to find the topic.

I guess it's a matter of taste, but would anyone care to share tangible pluses/minuses of removing the grilles from, say, M80s, or other front speakers? (besides the cool look)

The grille acts as a layer of protection for the tweeter and woofers. So if you have prodding children or annoying guests, it will draw less attention to the speakers and possible protection especially against children pushing in the dustcaps. If this is not an issue, your preference of running them without a grille would be desirable.

Funny that you mention it. The first thing that my 3 year old daughter did with a new pair of M3s was to poke her finger into one of the dustcaps. She pushed it in completely and although it eventually came out, it completely freaked me out for a while.

Yes. One of the advantages of using the grille and an effective deterrent at that is children will not see the woofers and tweeter, drawing less up close attention to the speaker itself. Naturally, the dustcap is one of the first things that are touched.

Think of a grille as a bra. If there aren't children about, then the tweeters/woofers should be in clear view IMO.

Another advantage to grills (black in my case) is prevent them from shining like headlights since I went to the trouble of blacking out the front of my room.

Same reason I chose black oak cabinets...to reduce reflective light(also cuz black goes with just about any decor).

Perfect.

Now if he could only convince his caregiver of this notion.

I'll second that!

HEHE, Scott and David. Maybe I can sometimes, but it's older balding guys that make them think otherwise.

BTW, Scott sat beside me at dinner on Friday night on the weekend of the reunion........just sayin'!

I used to have the grills off for about 8 months as I like the look of the speakers naked
But about a months ago, my little one started crawling so I had to put the grills back on. Well I don't know if it is a placebo effect but I have the impression that they sounded better before. The grills are supposed to be acoustically transparent so it could just be me, however, it would be interesting to take measurements with the grills on and off.

It's a placebo effect. The grilles are acoustically transparent with inaudible differences in our double-blind tests at the Axiom plant.

Psych-acoustic bias has a huge effect.

Regards,
Alan

Interesting...

Typo there, it should be "psycho-acoustic" bias.

And I should qualify my statement: differences between grille-on and grille-off are inaudible in blind tests using musical program material. You might be able to hear a slight difference using a full bandwidth pink-noise test signal, which is extremely critical and contains equal energy per octave across the musical spectrum. It's been some years since I've tried that.

Regards,
Alan

Some speaker tests(none involving Axioms)have shown response curves with and without grills. Generally, there's been a slight(about a dB or two)loss in the top octave with the grills, but it's highly doubtful that this would be audible in a blind listening test such as Alan described. Of course, the subjective review part of those tests often included a claim such as a loss of "air" with them on.

Speaking of Placebo affects, I SWEAR the picture on my TV is brighter, has more contrast and less colour banding since I added a Sub to my Home Theatre.

I *know* its just in my head, but seriously... it *does* look better! (To me anyway)

snazzed

Ahhhh, the effects a good sub can have on HT.

Grilles on 99% of the time for me

I keep my grilles on 100% of the time. Not to protect the speaker, but to protect the grilles. The safest place for the grilles is actually on the speaker.

In 1989 I was showing a buddy of mine my AX2's and he accidently sat on one of my grilles which I had placed on my bed (still living with my parents at the time). It broke, and I had to get a new one.

Ever since then I keep the grilles on the speakers, even when showing other people. Only take them off if they ask to see the driver compliment. And the I put them right back on.

Once bitten.....

I have a cat. Self explanatory.

She's been real good about scratching her claws in places where it was meant to be scratched. (There are 2 exceptions, though)

OUCH!

Oh, wait.

I was being presumptuous.

Ah. Make that 3 exceptions.

Yeah, my cat leaves the grilles alone but she gets curious with those drivers showing...

I stop using my grilles on my m60's after I noticed how much more crisper the sound was with the grills off.