Do you leave your speaker grills on? (1 Viewer)

[CarlosM]

I tried to ask the guys over at B&W, but all i got as a response was, "users find improvements with the grills off"...

I wanted to know if there was REALLY any difference -- as in measured

 

[Stephen Hopkins]

On my black cherry Swan's Divas i leave the grills on mainly because the drivers are gold and all my HT furniture is silver/black. The black cherry is dark enough that it doesn't clash badly but the gold drivers w/ the silver in the furniture doesn't look right. Since the Divas have a top-mount phase-shift-adjusted tweeter enclosure i doubt there would be any measurable difference in the sound w/ grills on vs. off. Might be different for the center since it's the newer version w/ the tweeter inside near the midrange to reduce combing/destructive interferrence. Maybe when i get around to doing some paint work on the silver on my AV stand (considering spray-on bedliner or plain satin black) i'll start leaving the grills off more since i do really like the look of the gold drivers.

 

[Ron Salvoro]

The best way to find any difference in the sound is to listen to speakers with eyes shut off while your wife do the trick on the speakers. We tried it with my B&W dm602 s3 and there was no difference in sound with grills on or off.

 

[Rex Quinn]

I keep them off all the time. They look better, and for some reason sound alot less localized (to me anyways) with them off. No kids, animals or other factors to concider for the saftey of the drivers.

Dust shoulden't be a problem, just go at them with a duster every few days. I actually found there to be much more dust when I left the grilles on, instead of now where I regularly dust them.

 

[Mike_Skeway]

Yeah grills on does not mean no dust in.