Tekton Double Impacts

Just a quick update on my DI’s (with the upgrade). The more hours these speakers are accumulating they continue to amazingly improve. I’m still waiting for the point in time when they stop sounding better! The lows have really fleshed out and upper mids and highs become ethereal with a breathtaking soundstage. I’m using bone standard 12 gage stranded OFC speaker wire. I recently ordered Morrow SP2 speaker wire to try with DI’s. Anyone have any experience with Morrow speaker cable? I ordered the DI’s with full speaker grills to protect the paper drivers from pets, curious grandchildren and vacuuming! Well, I didn’t like the rather veiled sound with the grills on, so I cut them in half to protect the vulnerable lower woofers just off the floor. Yeah, these puppies have presence, in more ways than one...😎

David suggested I remove the link to a Flickr pix. I did, so if you are interested in seeing my very modest system and 1/2 grills o the DI, PM me and I will send you a .jpeg.

Cheers, DI fans!

I am glad I saw your grille pic. I like the sound of the woofers with grilles but miss the sparkle of the top half. I want to keep my current grilles and have thought about asking Eric for another half set...but I fear it may be a year until I get them, hehe. Yours look great!

Did you maintain the bevel on the upper slat or just cut it off at the half piece slat?

Yes, I kept the top bevel for a factory look. What I did was remove the uppermost rail (it is very lightly glued and stapled), cut the verticals to about 1” above the middle grill mounting  holes. Then sanded the the side verticals to match the top bevel. I used five minute epoxy while holding in place. You could also sparingly use Gorilla glue. Touch up the sanded side bevel profiles with black paint so the the wood color doesn’t show through the black grill cloth. I like the look of mine and can still enjoy the top end sparkle and dispersion and don’t have to worry about my darned dogs marking territory. 

Another half grill build
Tried out the DIs without grills to make sure they sounded better and tt02, Eric, and others above are right -- they do.
So I cut down my grills ala tt02 and VOILA -- there is added presence, lifelike timbres, and a bit more punch.
HOWEVER, what I really notice is how much better they look. The boxlike nature of the lower half is complemented by the action look of the top set of speakers and the overall result is tons better than the DIs either with or without grills alone (are you listening, Eric?).
My approach differed from tt02s. Simply cut the lower half of the grill off leaving extra speaker cloth. Then, the sides had to be chamfered in 4 places to make room for the larger woofers (Dremel works fine here). Glue the cloth back on, transfer the Tekton icons back over and you’re finished. First one took an hour (because of the chamfers) and the second 15 minutes.
My only concern has to do with potential time delay of the woofer with a grill blockage slowing down its response by comparison to the rest of the drivers. Any ideas here?