Do you use your speakers with the front grills on or off.

[Box13]

In the study I have the grills off my Sony S3's as I bought them second hand and they have no grills.
Downstairs I will have to use the grills as I have three cats and two dogs and I fear for the drivers.

[Ammonite Audio]

It all depends on how they are designed. Neil Patel designed and voiced my Avalons to be used with grilles in place, and they do indeed sound 'wrong' without grilles. Many speakers are not 'designed' in this way and the grille is just a cosmetic afterthought, and that's why many sound better without.

[vinyl dragon]

On. I like British 70's speakers and they tend to be voiced for the grilles on.
Also frankly they tend to be as ugly as all hell without them
Graham

[orbscure]

I swap between grills on and off with my JBL4311's... but seeing that they look sooooo damn fine without them, they do come off when I have hi-fi related visitors... [show off mode on]

[jollyfix]

Off, the speakers i am using at the moment ( Duevel planets) don't have grills.

[Jimbo]

Always listen to mine with grills off. Treble definitely better.

[Joe]

Grilles on, mainly because I'm to lazy to take them off. The few times I've bothered, I've not noticed any different. The 'upstairs' speakers are designed to be used with the grilles in place.

[hifi_dave]

It's GRILLE not grill. A grill with no 'e' is something you cook food on.

Some speakers, such as Harbeth, have been designed to be used with grilles on. Many are designed for grilles off but in the end, it's like a tiny tone control for the user to do what ever he prefers.

[Reffc]

Grilles with frames (rather than foam grilles) will change the sound irrespective of whether grille material is acoustically transparent or not, to a greater or lesser extent. This may make precious little difference for cabinet baffles which are recessed or which have a lip around them anyway. Grilles on (or cabinet with protruding edges) means you are introducing a diffractive edge which can introduce destructive interference patterns (comb filtering). Some (few!) designers get around this by introducing absorptive wool felt to the inside edges of their grille frames. Ideally, baffle design/driver layout should be designed for no grille during use. Grilles ought ideally to be solely to act as dust protection for drivers when not in use.

[brian2957]

Thanks for the correction Dave , I should have checked first

Thanks for all the input guys , I'll have a good long listen today and post my impressions later .