Are Metal Speaker Grilles an Issue?


I'm asking this almost rhetorically since I see these on high end speakers like Martin Logans, but I'm designing a home theater setup from scratch, and I'm going to custom CNC some aluminum speaker grilles for this setup. 

 

As such, before I go through the process I just figured I'd ask my fellow audiophiles their feelings on metal speaker grilles.  These won't be sitting directly atop the speaker, more like a few inches away from the speaker and are more of an aesthetic piece (and to some degree, a quasi security feature against children!).  

 

But I've got a CNC machine so I can make them to any spec.  Anything I should be mindful of when milling them so that I'm not absolutely destroying the sound quality of the speakers behind them?  I'm willing to deal with a little bit of loss but don't want to overlook something really obvious that I coudl have designed around.

 

And before anyone asks, no, I'm not thinking about using a different material.  The material is metal, the question is how best to use it.

128x128wilschroter

I think some speakers use the grills for tuning, such as the metal grills on the Paradigm Persona lineup.

My Yamaha NS5000 have metal grills, and they only serve as protection. 

I guess it depends on the speaker.

There are lots of speaker measurements out there out grills on and off. Just have to look it up. Some grills are terrible and other are transparent. They can add a bit of diffraction. Cloth grills drop the highs about say 8k a bit. Like 0.5db for example. 

Every grille is an issue. It’s a physical object directly in front of the driver.

 

@mapman

Yet every ATC user (including me) and dealer recommends keeping them off.

I have the Studio Electric M-5's. Like the extra protection and cannot tell the difference in sound with or without.