Anyone Using Harbeths with Grilles off?

Alan Shaw says grills on give a flatter response.  Sometimes you don't want a flatter response.  But the difference is admittedly subtle.  I prefer Grills off for listening, but grills on for background music while I work. 

i find that with the grilles on they sometimes have some weird / subtle sounding interactions that sound like comb filtering.  
grilles off the sound is smoother and cleaner.  

Just an observation, but when I worked in a stereo store (many, many years ago), I noticed that the vast majority of customers could never resist the urge to turn up the treble and bass controls. This was true regardless of how bright or bassy the system was with all of the controls left neutral.

While tone controls are a thing of the past on much equipment these days, this same trend plays out in its own way these days. People love to tweak things by using different cables, or removing grills.

Harbeth is one of the most tonally neutral speakers out there when it come to reproducing unamplified acoustic music, but it doesn't surprise me when many ignore the designer's advice and remove the grills. They are just turning up the treble control a notch.

I'd also try to go with what the designer recommends. The Harbeth grilles were factored into every stage of the design process.

He even went to all the trouble of making them difficult to remove!

So unless there is some HF hearing loss...

In any case I've never preferred to use any loudspeaker without grilles. They always sound worse to me and that way seems to be asking for trouble. My days of forever craving more treble are over, I prefer a balanced sound.

Despite all of the endless ribbing of Alan's comments regarding amps, let's not forget that no one was able to accept his challenge of attempting to identify between 2 different amps unsighted.

He was even offering a free pair of the top of the range Harbeth M40s, but still there were no takers.

Somehow it appears we audiophiles strangely seem to lose all of our confidence in the powers of our golden eared superhuman hearing just as soon as someone puts the lights off.

Either that or the blindfold must be loaded with kryptonite.

@CD318, regarding the issue of HF hearing loss, keep in mind that condition equally affects both live and reproduced music. I'm in my late 60s an have some HF loss due to age, but I never find live music sounding dull or have any urge to "turn up the treble" at a live presentation of unamplified voice or acoustic instruments. (Sound at a live amplified event is a whole 'nother issue and is often quite poor.)

My goal for my home system is to have it sound as tonally close to what I would hear if the same music were being played live. The human brain actually does a pretty good job of adjusting for hearing loss, so if the speaker is designed to be correct with the grill on, there should be no big acoustic reason to take it off. (That said, appearances play a big role in stereo equipment and some just like the looks of exposed drivers.)