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  1. #1
    Forum Regular simmel's Avatar
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    Covers on or Off

    I don't know if this topic has been covered in the forum before or not, but here goes.

    Over the years I have had my speakers performing with the so called dust covers both on and off. Just recently I took the covers off on my Sonus Fabers for the first time in about a year, and experienced a completely different sound. The mid range and sound staging seemed much more open, and the base was not as warm as it had been.
    I had not moved the speakers and they were playing though the same amp as usual. I'm not too sure if this was the sound I liked or not. I must admit I liked the nice warm sound, but the not overly bright mid range did sound good as well.
    So what's your opinion?
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  2. #2
    It's just a hobby
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    It's speaker dependent

    Having covers on or off is very much dependent on the speaker design in question, my current Tannoys seem to prefer covers on (which is good for me), whereas I seem to recall that the small ELAC 310 prefer cover's off. I had Sonus Faber Concerto Homes once, but I can't remember whether they sounded better with grills on or off.
    It's a listening test, you do not need to see it to listen to it!

  3. #3
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    I have a new pair of VAF DC-Xs (local Australian brand, check their website if you like, www.vaf.com.au. I've tried them with the covers on and off. Can't really say that I've noticed any noticeable difference in the sound, but I prefer to leave the covers on.
    All we are saying, is give peas a chance.

  4. #4
    Forum Regular Kevio's Avatar
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    Speaker manufacturers try to design their covers to be acoustically transparent. If you're hearing a difference, they either failed at that or you're fooling yourself. Have a friend blindfold you and choose a cover configuration. See if you can tell the difference in a blind test. Let us know what you find.

  5. #5
    Ajani
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kevio
    Speaker manufacturers try to design their covers to be acoustically transparent. If you're hearing a difference, they either failed at that or you're fooling yourself. Have a friend blindfold you and choose a cover configuration. See if you can tell the difference in a blind test. Let us know what you find.
    I disagree.... Covers on or off can make a big difference... only some manufacturers design the covers to be acoustically transparent...

    Some manufacturers, such as Paradigm, design their speakers to be used with the covers on... and the difference in performance can actually be measured (check Stereophile's review of the Paradigm Studio 20 V4 for example)...

  6. #6
    Retro Modernist 02audionoob's Avatar
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    The covers on my primary speakers are perforated metal with fairly large holes. The sound seems the same with the covers on or off. However, for the bedroom stereo and the home theater setup I have speakers with cloth covers and there's no doubt in my mind they sound clearer with the covers off. I keep them on, though...don't like the looks with the covers off.

  7. #7
    Forum Regular Kevio's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ajani
    Some manufacturers, such as Paradigm, design their speakers to be used with the covers on... and the difference in performance can actually be measured (check Stereophile's review of the Paradigm Studio 20 V4 for example)...
    OK, looks like transparency is not the only design approach. Sounds a little suspicious though. Along the lines of improving NS-10's by hanging tissue in front of the tweeters.

  8. #8
    Retro Modernist 02audionoob's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kevio
    OK, looks like transparency is not the only design approach. Sounds a little suspicious though. Along the lines of improving NS-10's by hanging tissue in front of the tweeters.
    I've actually done a similar thing with my Focal speakers on occasion...depending on the music being played. Not tissue, but a cloth. It can be less fatiguing.

    Edit: I've done a little reading on the NS-10 tissue thing. I see now it's a bit different than what my cloth is doing. The tissue is apparently reflecting highs back into the tweeter. I think my cloth (linen) is probably mostly absorbing rather than reflecting.
    Last edited by 02audionoob; 02-15-2009 at 10:41 AM.

  9. #9
    It's just a hobby
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kevio
    OK, looks like transparency is not the only design approach.
    Some manufacturer use grills to tune the FR, Here is the Dynaudio Sapphire, here the grill cover is specifically designed to modify the speaker lower treble behaviour.
    It's a listening test, you do not need to see it to listen to it!

  10. #10
    Sure, sure... Auricauricle's Avatar
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    I think that listening to music is about psychology as it is about physiology. Saying that, I have no doubt that certain "expectancy" effects, much like placebos, crop up now and then, when we expect a certain sonic characteristic to be produced in a given situation. For example, I sometimes think that I perceive locations of instruments, vocalists, etc., with the grills removed. At the same time, I realise that I am more congnizant of the speaker's location and their directionality, for they have been made visible. So, is there a difference, or am I just psyching myself up to perceive it? I agree with the comment that grills ought to be sonically transparent, but this may be naiive, as I am sure that some manufacturers design their speakers with the grill as in important and integral part of the architecture....

    Food for thought.
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  11. #11
    abNORMal IBSTORMIN's Avatar
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    It's personal preference

    I believe the speakers are designed with the cover in consideration. My speakers sound warmer with the covers on, more bright and open with the covers off. The brightness with the covers off wears you out listening to them for extended periods.

  12. #12
    Sure, sure... Auricauricle's Avatar
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    Well, there ya go, then! Mebbe we should design covers for the ears for that very reason!

  13. #13
    Forum Regular Kevio's Avatar
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  14. #14
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    Quite right!

    Quote Originally Posted by Ajani
    I disagree.... Covers on or off can make a big difference... only some manufacturers design the covers to be acoustically transparent...

    Some manufacturers, such as Paradigm, design their speakers to be used with the covers on... and the difference in performance can actually be measured (check Stereophile's review of the Paradigm Studio 20 V4 for example)...
    I think the grille assembly for Paradigms and some others (PSB) is designed to cut down diffraction effects from the edges of the speaker cabinets, and this smooths the frequency response and helps even out the dispersion. My Paradigms and my older PSBs certainly sound better to me with the grilles on, and the reason is easy to find.

    http://stereophile.com/standloudspea...gm/index3.html

    See fig. 5.

    http://stereophile.com/standloudspea...29/index4.html

    See fig. 4

    In other words, if you put a grille on for aesthetic and protective reasons, you may as well make it so that it improves the sound. Makes sense to me.
    "Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony."
    ------Heraclitus of Ephesis (fl. 504-500 BC), trans. Wheelwright.

  15. #15
    Forum Regular Kevio's Avatar
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    I may be misreading these but it looks to me like you've got the same 5 dB magnitude of squiggles in the high end with and without the grills. Clearly there's a difference in location of peaks and valleys but I don't think you could predict which would sound better based only on these measurements.

    But, I agree the designers would have probably (hopefully?) done their critical listening and final design tweaks with grills on so that's probably the way you want to listen if you want to hear what the manufacturer was shooting for.

  16. #16
    Forum Regular simmel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Auricauricle
    I think that listening to music is about psychology as it is about physiology. Saying that, I have no doubt that certain "expectancy" effects, much like placebos, crop up now and then, when we expect a certain sonic characteristic to be produced in a given situation. For example, I sometimes think that I perceive locations of instruments, vocalists, etc., with the grills removed. At the same time, I realise that I am more congnizant of the speaker's location and their directionality, for they have been made visible. So, is there a difference, or am I just psyching myself up to perceive it? I agree with the comment that grills ought to be sonically transparent, but this may be naiive, as I am sure that some manufacturers design their speakers with the grill as in important and integral part of the architecture....

    Food for thought.

    Some of this reply I agree with, however my Sonus Fabers have a beautiful leather cover surrounding the bass and tweeters, so why cover that up with the grill?
    Also if the manufacture intends the grills to be an integral part of the speaker, why make them so easy to detach, why not fix them with screws from the inside for instance. I refer for instance to the B and W who's speakers have magnetically detachable grills to make them easy to detach quote.
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  17. #17
    Forum Regular hermanv's Avatar
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    Commercial acoustic cloth attenuates tweeter frequencies, many speakers come with a tweeter level adjustment which should be adjusted up if covers are added and down if they are removed

    Even when adjusted carefully some of the character of the speaker will change since cover attenuation is not flat with frequency.

    Most speakers will sound more detailed with the covers removed, often this is a false improvement because it overemphasizes the highs. For many of us, this will lead to listener fatigue.
    Herman;

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  18. #18
    Class of the clown GMichael's Avatar
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    Kids in the house = covers on.
    No kids = covers off.
    WARNING! - The Surgeon General has determined that, time spent listening to music is not deducted from one's lifespan.

  19. #19
    Sure, sure... Auricauricle's Avatar
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    Yeah, GM, I bet you're a "covers off" kinda guy, eh?

  20. #20
    Class of the clown GMichael's Avatar
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    Until this summer, yeah.
    WARNING! - The Surgeon General has determined that, time spent listening to music is not deducted from one's lifespan.

  21. #21
    Music Junkie E-Stat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by simmel
    So what's your opinion?
    I agree with Hobby that it is speaker dependent.

    The 'stats use stretched spandex, so as Kevio suggests, their affect is nil. This I determined with my previous stats which originally used a thicker weave cloth that did attenuate the highs. I later had a seamstress make some similar spandex socks which were acoustically transparent. In the HT system, I find the Polks are a bit bright, so I prefer leaving the grilles on (along with a 2 db treble cut). With the vintage double New Advents, I split the difference after much experimentation with not only grill position, but tweeter level. The grilles definitely make a difference and I prefer running the lowers on and the uppers naked. With them, it also opens up the soundstage a bit as well. I run the lowers on attenuate and the uppers on normal.

    While I am largely an audiophile minimalist, I prefer having tweeter level controls on speakers. I find that speakers that are flat in an anechoic environment to be intolerably bright.

    rw

  22. #22
    Sure, sure... Auricauricle's Avatar
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    I notice that my socks are not so accoustically transparent; my wife still hears me when I sneak into the kitchen in the middle of the night....So, spandex, eh?
    "The great tragedy of science--the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact."--T. Huxley

  23. #23
    Music Junkie E-Stat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Auricauricle
    I notice that my socks are not so accoustically transparent; my wife still hears me when I sneak into the kitchen in the middle of the night....So, spandex, eh?
    That's the ticket!

    rw

  24. #24
    Aging Smartass
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    It's interesting to recall the evolution of grille cloths on loudspeakers in this industry. (I'm curious as to when "grille cloth" was replaced with "dust cover" - perhaps someone can enlighten me.)

    In the mid 60's, when AR, KLH and EMI were the predominant loudspeaker brands, no grilles were removable, and in order to repair a defective driver, the entire loudspeaker had to be shipped back to the manufacturer as the grille was thoroughly destroyed by removing it. Removable grilles began to make their appearance in the late 60's, notiably on KLH models, not for the sake of listening to the speaker without the grilles in place, but to expedite repairs.

    Eventually, removable grilles became standard on almost all loudspeakers, and retailers would often display the speakers without the grilles, simply to show off what was inside. It was a very common sight to see the dust cap in the middle of all the woofers and midrange drivers to be pushed in by inquisitive consumers.

    Foam grilles gained prominence with the introduction of JBL's famous L-100 loudspeaker. No one knew that "foam rot" would eventually set in and destroy the grille, but foam was the most acoustically transparent material available at the time (early to mid 70's), and very well may still be.

    I can't say which loudspeaker manufacturer designed their loudspeakers to be listened to with, or without the grilles, but I would suspect most would have designed the units to be operated with the grilles in place, simply because that's how most people would be using them. Certainly with the Dahlquist DQ-10, the speaker was to be listened to with the grille in place, because the speaker looks downright awful without it!

    Lastly, let us not forget what some Japanese manufacturers brought to the scene: huge, expensive looking, plastic trim rings surrounding junk drivers to try to make them look like they were actually decent. I seriously doubt that fooled anyone who reads this forum, but it sure sold a ton of stuff!

    Today, it's probably a matter of user preference. Whether the manufacturer designed the speaker with the grille in place or not, the user himself will decide which way he prefers it, and, as long as his wife can stand the looks of the speaker without the grille in place, that very well may be the way he listens to it! I don't mean to sound so chauvinistic, but when I bought my B&W 802F Specials, there was an optional "wife-hood" to place over the exposed midrange/tweeter assembly. Now there was a sexist item if there ever was one!

  25. #25
    Class of the clown GMichael's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by E-Stat
    That's the ticket!

    rw
    I think that you should, "give him a ticket."
    WARNING! - The Surgeon General has determined that, time spent listening to music is not deducted from one's lifespan.

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