It's one of those little choices we all face when setting up a system: leave the grilles on, or take them off?
When we were designing the Aspen speakers, this came up more than once. Not because we couldn’t make a decent-looking grille—Chris did a beautiful job with the magnetic mounts and the way they blend with the cabinet—but because any time you put something in front of a driver, it changes what you hear.
Grilles matter. Even when they’re acoustically transparent (which most aren’t), they still introduce diffraction. That’s what happens when soundwaves hit an edge—like the frame of a grille—and scatter. You don’t just hear the original wave anymore. You hear that wave plus tiny, delayed versions of itself. That smearing can soften detail, blur imaging, or add a little edge to the top end.
With the Aspens, we voiced the speakers without the grilles in place. That’s how they were meant to be heard. If you’re chasing the last word in soundstage focus, imaging precision, and tonal accuracy, leave them off. The planar tweeter and midrange panels radiate with such clarity that even small obstructions up front make a difference.
That said, not everyone listens in a lab. If the speakers are in a high-traffic living room or you’ve got little ones or pets wandering around, I’d rather you leave the grilles on and enjoy the music than worry about scuffing a driver.
Just know this: grilles may look like a small detail, but in high-end audio, small things add up. If you want to hear your speakers at their best—especially something as revealing as the Aspen series—take a moment, pull the grilles off, sit down, and listen again.
You might be surprised at how much was hiding behind that fabric.
