Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Grills or no grills

I was wondering what is better in terms of sound quality. to leave the grills on or to take the grills off. i haven't had much time to experiment yet because i've been busy studying MCATS but it seems like something that would make a difference

i dont think anyone has ever mentioned a noticable, audible difference on their axioms with the grills off.. it is all about appearance..

i keep the grills on cause of the WAF.. but, i sure like the way they look with them off..

BTW- protech, is your avatar a self portrait, or wishful thinkin??

bigjohn

Hi Loose,

It depends on how well the grille has been designed. The Axiom grilles have negligible influence on frequency response. There is a tiny difference (a fraction of a dB) in the upper-octave response around 15 kHz with the grille on, but in double-blind tests, I've not been able to detect any audible difference using music as a test source.

With some brands, and a clumsy massive grille design, there can be significant audible difference with the grille on. Whatever speakers you own, it's easy to check. Take the grille off one speaker and leave it on the other; position the speakers fairly close to each other, perhaps a foot apart, and play some familiar music. Use the balance control on your receiver to go from one speaker back to the other. A crude test, but if there was a gross difference, you might hear it.

Regards,

I am prepared to guess that for my ears leaving the grills on or off won't make too much difference either way. Embarrassingly I am tempted to leave them off for asthetic reasons alone - are the woofers/tweeters likely to be particularly susceptible to dust - will they need to be cleaneed later if you leave the grilles off and is that tricky?

In reply to:

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Embarrassingly I am tempted to leave them off for asthetic reasons alone - are the woofers/tweeters likely to be particularly susceptible to dust - will they need to be cleaneed later if you leave the grilles off and is that tricky?

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I leave my grills off for aesthetic reasons, although my girlfriend has expressed that she prefers them on so I'm not sure how long they'll stay that way

I just got them a few weeks ago, though, so I can't comment on the dust issue. Anyone else? I'd like to know, too.

i am leaving the grills on all my speakers(due to WAF), but i used to leave them off.. the best way i found to clean the woofers, was a soft, angled end paint brush.. just use soft brush strokes, and the dust comes right off.. now, i aint sure if that holds true for the aluminum drivers on the axioms, but i dont see how it would be any different. just ensure its a good quality brush with soft bristles.

bigjohn

A blast of (CFC-free!) canned air removed dust pretty nicely, too. Of course, if you've caressed your drivers and left smears of finger grease all over them, then it's harder to remove the dust....

Oh no! we're back to caressing our drivers again. Stay away from the ports, you guys!

Personally, I like grilling better than frying... So grills are good !

I'm sorry! We already had the grill "thread" here.