How grills affect?

Many speaker designers will make accomodations for the effects of the grill cloth and will make the tweeter a bit "hotter" to compensate.

I don't think that there are any hard and fast rules. I've always found it best to just try it both ways and see what works best. Most sound better with the grills removed, but not always.

In a more direct answer to the original question regarding grills on the Totem Forest, I would recommend that you contact Totem. They are, however, obviously designed to be used sans the grills, so you'll have to guage how adverse the effect of leaving them on will be to your listening enjoyment. I had a pair of Aerial Model 5s which included grills but they are clearly an afterthought and are designed soley for the purpose of protecting the speakers when not listening (and perhaps appeasing significant others).

-Dan

So Craig, you mean that Richard's grille material ISN'T acoustically transparent ? : )

Removing grille's will almost always increase apparent brightness along with the potential for added sibilance. In most cases though, the speakers actually measure flatter / more linear with the grille's off. Luckily, grille's are easy to take off and on ( with most speakers ) so that you can judge for yourself which way you want to listen to them. Sean
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I, too, have Dunlavy V's and they sound more transparent with grills of,(measures flater too, +/-2 db)eventhough the manual says they are designed to be listened with grills on.

Back again. I did a late night listening comparison with my Thiel CS1.5s. Since I had to keep the volume down, I can't say much about the anti-diffraction properties of the grilles. (I'm really not sure I could ever evaluate those properties.) However, the speakers did sound better to me with the grilles off, more detail and spatial cues. I took a close look at the 1.5 and 2.3 grilles. I put them against a light and also did the "breath test." They look like they could have been designed better. It seems there could have been less grille material and more space for airflow. When blowing into the grilles, there is a good bit of resistance to airflow. I can't imagine that these grilles could possibly be "acoustically transparent." I suppose that more acoustically transparent grilles become less effective as dust covers and visual blocks.

First things to go on my SCiv's were the grilles. Sound much better when the grilles are in the closet than when they are masking the speakers. Tom