What Factors Should You Consider for Your Speaker Grille’s Design?

Extensive design and engineering is involved in the manufacturing of a speaker grille to protect and support the sound quality of the speaker.

That’s why Early Supplier Involvement (ESI) is critical for speaker grille applications. ESI provides better collaboration between the manufacturer and the supplier to deliver better quality, lower costs, and faster development.

Metalex has over 50 years’ experience in the expanded and perforated metal industry. Our team of talented engineers and range of operation capabilities offer the audio industry a one-stop shop for their speaker grille design.

Our team collaborates to ensure that the pattern and material chosen are ideal for the aesthetic and functional requirements of the design. Metalex is the ideal partner for speaker manufacturers.

Speaker Grilles

Speaker grilles are protective measures critical to the home, automotive and professional audio industries. Speaker grilles are designed to protect the inner workings of a speaker — the cone, tube, and delicate electronics behind them, without distorting the sound quality.

With careful consideration throughout the design and manufacturing process, you can achieve an appropriate balance of protection and sound quality.

Material

While a harder protective element can provide stronger protection, a speaker grille material that is too hard won’t flex with the sound waves. The lack of flexibility in the grille can actually damage a speaker, instead of protecting it from damage as intended.

Choosing a material of the appropriate density achieves both protection for the components and flexibility for sound production.

Perforations

Speaker grilles have perforations by necessity — sound vibrations must be able to travel from the speaker tone to the listener. A solid sheet of metal, even a very thin one, would drastically impact sound quality. A quality speaker grille design incorporates a high percentage of open area through the pattern of perforation and bar size to achieve unaltered sound, while providing protection for the inner workings of the speaker.

Grille Design & Manufacture with Metalex

Learn about more factors to consider in the design and manufacture of speaker grilles – download our free eBook, “Early Supplier Involvement in Speaker Grilles.”