Crushed speaker cones

[Happiness Stan]

BTW What is it with kids and speaker cones? They are attracted to them like moths to a flame. Maybe it reminds them of their mother's breasts?

 

[BigonaBianchi]

supergloo said little fingers to cone...grab feet and pull hard

 

[Fab Foodie]

Yeah, lot of people think that. I've always thought speakers look untidy with the grilles off and virtually always sound worse that way too. Can't think of a pair of speakers I've heard that sounded better without the grilles.

Try Rogers Studio 1a's for starters!

 

[Fab Foodie]

Ever been in a studio?

Yep.

 

[Mr Pig]

Try Rogers Studio 1a's for starters!

I've heard lots of speakers without grilles, some that have no grilles, but if they do have grilles they sound better with them on. What you want in a studio and what you want at home is not always the same thing.

People in studios remove the grilles because you can hear more detail that way, grilles are not acoustically transparent as is sometimes claimed, but more is not always better.

What grilles do is help greatly with the dispersal of most treble units, which tend to be very directional, and the coherence and integration of the speaker as a whole. It's an easy thing to test. Forget all about detail. Listen to a piece of music with grilles off and then grilles on and see which is the most involving. Which makes your feet tap more, which makes the band sound more together, which lets you follow the tune more easily? I've done this loads of times and grilles on always wins.

Having said that my speakers each have two grilles, as they have upward-firing drive units, and they sound better with the top grilles off. They sound worse with the front grilles off though, definitely.

 

[mr Mag00]

sellotape works well

 

[mr Mag00]

there is no way they can do it with their fingers bound in sellotape

 

[Mr Pig]

I prefer mine with the grills off.

Free country dude ;0)

 

[Fab Foodie]

I prefer mine with the grills off. They sound better without them, as they do in the studio.

Depends on the speaker and application, IIRC, the Rogers, Spendor and Harbeth studio monitors are designed to be used most definately with their grills on. Others might not.
The big Yamaha NS1's (?) were definately better grills-off. I don't think there is a hard and fast rule about it, depends how they were designed.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I prefer mine with the grills off.

I preferred mine with the grills off too - they're boxed up in the attic now with crushed in cones.

 

[Milo]

Grills off on mine.

 

[Mr Pig]

big Yamaha NS1's (?) were definately better grills-off.

Maybe thinking of the NS1000? I know a guy in Glasgow who has those, ruthlessly revealing speakers, very clear. Bit too light-sounding for my taste but as a monitor, fantastic.

The thing about taking the grilles off is that it sounds instantly impressive so it's easy to think it's better. There are lots of things in Hi-Fi that are like that. As you say, many manufacturers voice their speakers to balance out with the grilles on, or at least they used to. I doubt it's the same these days, I think most would add grilles as an afterthought, if they provide them at all.

One grille that I thought looked fantastic was the metal ones used by Gale in the eighties, I can't remember the model so can't find a picture. They basically took a 12mm thick plate of aluminium the same size as the front of the speaker and drilled thousands of holes in it and painted it black! No idea what it sounded like, must've cost a bomb to make but it looked brilliant!

 

[Fab Foodie]

Them's the babies Mr P, bright and fast, but I wouldn't want to listen to them all th time.

 

[dellzeqq]

Little fingers have pushed in the centre of one. The vac won't suck it out.

Any ideas?

boarding school. It's never too soon.

 

[Mr Pig]

bright and fast, but I wouldn't want to listen to them all th time.

No. The guy I know who uses them designs and builds tonearms so he wants speakers that are very transparent. This is him: LINK He builds these things, more or less, in his garage! All the machining, plating the lot. It's unbelievable. You can get them in any colour or configuration you like, including gold plated!