grills or no grills on your speakers..matters?

If your system has been set up to a threshold level of accuracy and retail resolution, then removal of the grills will definitely improve things enough that you will want to take them off. I am still using a pair of Snell B Type full-range 5-sided speakers since 1993 and have tried them on and off in my system as it evolved. I never was able to hear a difference until this year when I finally got the message about isolation platforms for every component and power supply and proper cable separation. Only after giving every component its own maple platform sitting on iso-blocks and an assortment of brass footers, Terra Stones, Herbie's Rollers, etc. gleaned from the used market, was I able to actually hear more detail when the covers were off and to crave it when they are on. Until you address the system set-up issues that lower the noise floor that interferes with the low-level details, the difference might be inaudible to you as it was for me until I finally got my system to basic fundamental audio set-up integrity.

Instead of grills, I've found that a small electric barbed wire fence around my speakers can keep the drivers safe...I found that using a moat full of piranhas was simply not practical, and the cats kept disappearing.

Grills are always off except when company is over. Sounds best to me that way. I don't want anyone touching the drivers.

Removed the grill cloth from my Hales Revelation Three recently and the speakers were reborn IMO. I figured that 30 years worth of dust embedded in the cloth covering my drivers would prove to be detrimental to good sound...

Grills On only for parties. If you can't hear the difference, then your system may needs upgrade!