I like the look of my speakers naked but I leave the grills on because it's more practical. Less dust and better protection against kids--a lot of my friends have little ones.
I generally prefer the look of speakers with the grills on, but it will depend on the particular speakers.
Regardless of that, I strongly recommend that you leave the grills on, as they help protect the speakers from damage. Many people get their dome tweeters pushed in and their dustcaps on their woofers pushed in because they left the grill off and someone subsequently damaged them. And damaged speakers look much, much worse than speakers with grills on them.
The speaker grilles definitely diminish the treble response from the tweeters, and not in a good way. Take them off, no ifs ands or buts! Unless you like muffled frequency response.
I had an old pair of Bose 601s lying around. They are 20 years old or so. Took off the speaker covers and it is like I just bought a brand new pair of speakers!
I also have a Polk Center channel speaker that was barely listenable. I removed the cover and it sounds great.
If it were up to me and I lived alone I'd leave the grilles off cause I just think it looks cooler, but I have Polk RTi speakers and my wife isn't a huge fan of the silver speaker face of that particular line. For me it comes down to aesthetics and WAF. She already thinks my subs look like two hot water heaters in our living room.
It is a case by case decision. I have 9 quality speakers in my house, and only three have the speaker grilles removed. It makes a huge difference on the treble. If you are happy with the high frequency response, leave the speakers as they are. In my case the change wasn't even subtle. If you are an audio engineer, why do the speaker grills tend to muffle the tweeters and not the woofers or subs?
That's just it, they should not muffle the sound. I certainly believe you that your's do muffle the sound. In all the measurements we have done there is no difference. Can you see through your speaker grills? It sounds like you have some unique grills that muffle the sound.
That said, it also depend of the speaker.
Some look much better with the grills on but others, look like piece of art especially if the speaker have a nice look with nice looking drivers.
With kids in the early age, I would leave them on.
With pets, it depend.
I got 3 cats and they never bother the speakers or subs other than sitting on top
Ray
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