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?

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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.

I leave the grills on most of the time but once and a while I do take them off if I am listening by myself.Those naked drivers really do look good.

I'm sorry I don't know, but what is WAF? Thanks

Wife Acceptance Factor.

Another case of CNS cured by JohnK!




Ok, fine: Confused Newbie Syndrome

izub, welcome. Given your newbie status, it is only fair to mention that you should keep your grilles on and your cones covered. Even behind dark curtains. There is one among us who harbors a dark secret and is a known {shudder} CONE TOUCHER!!!! He uses sausage fingers and Texas is only the beginning of the carnage. There are also rumors of, well, port abuse. No one speaks his name. Well, OK - it's Darth bigjohn.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

LOL Yes the wife is one reason I need to get something besides m22 for my backs. The cabinet for her Pez collection (although it IS extremely cool) is VERY damn tall! so it's smaller backs at some point. Grills will stay on although serious monitoring of my cat must be done!Cone touching seems a bit kinky but Port abuse? complete aberration.

I have always liked grills off. I like to show off the drivers.

I use this as an example Girl with shirt on or girl with shirt off ?

Grills off unless you need to protect the drivers from something. Like little people

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Girl with shirt on or girl with shirt off

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well, now that all depends on the girl and what her 'drivers' look like!!

bigjohn

Knock it off John. Do you have any idea how difficlut it is for someone as old as I am to get up off the floor. Man o man!

Yeah, I can hear the creaking from here...

Great analogy. I can always relate when boobs (drivers) are involved

LOL! That's why I told you to move your damn bed away from the wall!

Huh? Did someone say boobs? I came a running when I thought I heard boobs...........or was it Streem speakers rule? Oh hell now I'm getting confused. I hope it was boobs because we all know that Streem speakers do not rule.

(Thread Hi-Jack in progress....sorry)

Is it me or do you look HAPPY .Boobs will do it every time.

Dam, you got me. I'm actually in a great mood today! Time to change the nic I guess.

I agree them damn clown faces scare me.

Does it make me a geek that I read "change the nic" and wondered what your mood has to do with your 'network interface card'....?


jr

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Does it make me a geek that I read "change the nic" and wondered what your mood has to do with your 'network interface card'....?

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Yes I'm sorry to say but it does!....but hell we are all geeks in one way or another. My wife calls me a geek for talking to people on boards like this.

(Thread Hi-Jack still in progress.....please come back later)

We are?

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We are?

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Admitting it is the first step buddy. Say it with me "I'm a geek"

Man sitting here laughing my ass off and the wife is wondering what the heck is wrong with me.Ok here it goes I think I'm a geek.Does that count?

It's a step in the right direction! AMEN BROTHER!!!!! You have been converted to the world of STREEM.....oh hell....I meant GEEK! Anybody got a pill to get rid of Streem fever?

Don't be jealous now you know you want some Streems.Only $600 for 5 speakers how could you go wrong?

I still see those damn clown faces.

Yep, I want them. Fido needs something new to do his stuff on. As for the masks. I should let you in on how I came across those as a few have asked before. For whatever reason I can't get out of the harder side of music. I'm 36 and will be 37 in a few weeks. Married, 2 kids....blah......blah.....anyway, I still listen to Metal.....a lot. Those masks come from a very good metal bands web-site called Symphony X. If anyone here likes to dabble in metal, give them a listen.

symphonyx.com

Give the track "Wicked" a listen! Excellent!!!!!

My kids are heavy into Metal, I'll turn them on to it.They went to Oz fest over the weekend and loved it.I like rock but not the stuff the kids listen to.One band called Dope they listen to is pretty good though.

I bookmarked it and will tell the kids.

Not bad stuff, but I'm kinda laughing... 80s, here we come! Queen, anyone?

I think you're just a shill for SymphonyX!

OK, i am not ready to call myself a geek just yet.. i had no idea what 'nic' meant, so my supposed geekdom has not come full circle. i get on here during the work day to kill some down time. well, at least til the boss pays a visit

wid- DOPE is a very cool band. they are pretty fast and aggressive, but i like them alot. i actually hung out with their drummer and drank a few beers after a show once. he was a really cool guy, from atlanta i think.

bigjohn

My daughter really loves them.She has seen them in concert alot.She too has went out to dinner with the band. She had the drummer on her voice mail.I would call her and get him ansering her phone.The cd "Life" is pretty good.There's a song on there Die Mother F**ker Die that has some pretty serious bass notes on it.Give that one a try,it will work your sub pretty good.

Jen,thats my daughter,Says Dope originated from New York now their based out of Chicago.

1. I work in the IT Industry
2. I have a dual processor machine at HOME, with 2GB of RAM
3. I have dual monitors
4. I have Axiom Speakers wired in wall with banana plugs for coolness
5. I have a stick of 1MB of RAM on my keychain
6. I have a TabletPC
7. I have a 512MB USB Drive in my pocket

I AM GEEK

- D

Oh you do have it bad.

Lesseee:

1. I work in the IT industry.
2. I have a dual proc machine at home, with not nearly that much RAM.
3. I have dual monitors.
4. I have Axiom speakers and I made my own cable.
5. Uh...
6. I have a Newton!
7. Um...

Yeah, me too. But you seem to be geekier. Do you read /.?

I think I'm a GEEK too .
I'm a systems engineer (IT). I own a Pocket PC with a 1Gb microdrive and wireless with terminal services client and ssh client like putty.
At home I have a Dell half rack with three servers, two of them running RedHat Linux 7.2 (I like this distro) for web and test purposes. I do a lot of home automation (part of my job) and linux is the OS of choice. The third server is W2k Advanced server; it's also a test platform. Finally, I have a T1 running for VPN, internet, web and email. We use the T1 for my wife’s business.

Nothing wrong being a GEEK

Tom

OH YEA!!!!

WELL, MY DADDY HAS A BASS BOAT!!!

i have no idea where that came from??

bigjohn

I re-read my reply. I does kind of sound like a BIG GEEK CONTEST That wasn't my intention

My name is Andrew, and I am a geek.
I realized I had a problem when (at 18) I discovered that the natural log of the number of dice I had was greater than the number of women I had slept with. I immediately realized that if I didn't alter my lifestyle I would be faced with serious problems later in life. I began to go out into the sun, and found that my skin gradually became less and less translucent as the days elapsed. I also found that my car would not spontaneously combust if I broke the speed limit, and that if I put down the MySQL book it was much easier to watch the television. While I never managed to truely grasp the wonders of Buffy, Boyz II Men, or Legally Blonde, I am happy to say now that my dice collection has not grown substantially, while my black book has fattened considerably. I will admit that I have a 256 MB USB drive in my pocket as I write this, but it has mp3s on it, and that is "cool". As it stands now, a significant portion of my paycheck would have to be diverted to Chessex in order for me to plunge once again to the depths of geekdom where I once dwelled.

hello andrew!! thanks for opening up to us.

well, at least its good you have moved past denial, and are on the track to recovery and acceptance. and remeber, you can take the man out of the geek, but you can never take the geek out of the man..

and besides, havent those chicks figured out.. GEEKS DO IT BETTER!!

bigjohn

Yesss... Think "Revenge of the Nerds." Think "Moonlanding" Scene... Geeks do it better. Cause that's all we think about.

Just to get back on track for a second,

http://www.wilsonaudio.com/technotes/index.html

It would seem that David Wilson has found that some grills can in fact change the frequency response. The test is a few years old but still valid.

..........and yes I'm a GEEK to and dam proud of it!!!!!