Subwoofers - Grille off or on?

I have never had a pair of full range speakers that sounded better with grills so I never use them. 3 of the 4 pairs of subs I have have no grill over the speaker, being either upward firing or downward firing. I do have grills on my Nelson Reed 1204s. Considering the frequencies involved I doubt that the grills would be audible; usually the problem with grills is treble attenuation, which of course does not apply here.

Just which speakers do you have in mind? Are you saying that the ones I have listened to really sound better with them on? What I said was that I had never heard one sound better. I have not heard all speakers and I doubt if you have heard the ones I listen to. My Mini Utopias did not COME with a grill, did Focal screw up their sound? All the grill can do is attenuate the treble, do you want that done? The only really transparent grills ever made were the old foam ones like JBL use to use, effective but looked cheap. Even the Quads were considered to sound better uncovered.

A very pretty paradox as Gilbert and Sullivan would say.

You know, before I joined this forum I had no idea of the power other people appear to think I possess. I had previously regarded myself as unquestionably the worlds foremost authority on my own opinion. When I make a statement like " I have never heard a speaker that sounded better with the grills on" I am recounting my own experience, not making existential statements about the nature of the universe. Some of you out there appear to think that such a statement, if uncorrected, will do damage to the tender minds of the less experienced. Raul recently accused me of ignorantly misleading the uninformed by disagreeing with him about the relative merits of two tonearms. Unlike him, I do not consider myself a GURU and feel free to express myself with the expectation that readers will regard such utterances not as expressions of the REVEALED TRUTH but simply as the current thinking of a very fallible audiophile. So chill out , my opinions are mine alone and binding on no one else whatsoever.