Grills OFF or Grills ON ???

I too have an inside cat that did damage to my speakers, ONLY ONCE!!! I use the Roman Audio Centurions, 8" 2-way floor standing speaker, that she (the cat) saw her reflection in the gloss black finish and pounced at. The end result was that she tore the surround on one of the 8" drivers, I never put the grills on. So, needless to say, she wound up at the vet's office and got declawed, on all fours. When we got her home, having her declawed seemed to really calm her down. I informed my wife that if I caught, or seen, the cat chewing on any of my cables, the cat would suffer a fate similar to what Ed_sawyer described. Since then, we have moved and I now have a room all to myself, no cats allowed!!!!!

Currently have 4 sets of speakers and do all listening with cloth removed........have no pets or small children in home.

Seems to be obvious that a cloth however sheer between your ear and speaker driver has to have some negative effect on sound transparancy.

Unfortunately some speakers are aesthetically pretty ugly with speaker cloth removed........most however are so sweet you can't stand to hide those drivers from sight.

Our family has had several cats over the years inside/ outside cats. My mother taught me to use a spay bottle several years ago. Make it in a stream mode so you can squirt from 6 to7 feet away. Filled only w/ water beleive me they will learn quick if you squirt them every time do something you dont want them to do. We have no problems over the years. The kids just got a new cat a year ago, he got trained real quick by Dad`s squirt bottle. As for grill`s on or off. I prefer them off, in my case I have a pair of Mezzo`s and they sound really crapy w/ the grill`s on. (ha ha) David

Well, the worst has happened! After almost 3 months of leaving the grills off my Tannoy D-700's, I actually watched as one of the cats stared inquiringly at the upper driver for about 30 seconds. How cute, I thought, as it looked a lot like the famous picture of the RCA dog staring into that record player and then....it attacked the moving driver!

The surround is torn, and I will have to pay $220 to have the speaker reconed to bring it back to perfection.

Beware! It ain't worth it!! Put those grills on if you have cats!!!

JB:

Sorry to hear of your plight. I should have added to my previous post the following ... no matter how many well-intentioned people tell you that you can train a cat or you can use a squirt bottle or blah, blah, blah and they have been successful ... quite frankly, they have just been lucky or they are full of it. I have owned cats for over 20 years, in various multiples (1 to 6) and they ultimately will get into stuff. and it is very much, monkey see ... monkey do with cats, as well. Assuming that you wish to remain a cat owner (which is preferable for me), you either get the cat's front claws removed or move the speakers to where the cats can't get to them or leave your job and spend your time supervising them.

Give them a can of tuna tonight ... Rich