Clearance between face of speaker and grill cloth

[barrymclark]

I have am having a front-loaded Eminence Red Fang in a cabinet I am designing. What kind of clearance shoud I have between the baffle face and the back of the grill cloth to allow for speaker movement. I'd imagine that these speakers do not move far out of the frame height if at all.

Any input here would be great.

Thanks!

[Chuck H]

I can't say from personal experience, but I've seen a few amps modified with a larger speaker that was installed without increasing the baffle opening. There was no bumping of the cone edge on the baffle, so... I'll assume that most often, with typical guitar speakers, the speaker cone edge doesn't exceed the frame mounting face. BUT... There could be an issue with the grill cloth itself moving sympathetically with the speaker cone/s and whacking on the speaker frame mounting face. I'd probably give it 1/8" of clearance from the speakers mounting face. I might even design so that I could increase that distance if needed without a major undertaking.

JM2C

[J M Fahey]

Agree.
1/8" minimum if the cloth is real tight (it will vibrate anyway), up to 1/4" if itīs loose.
It also depends on cloth material: a "plastic/synthetic" cloth , if tight will keep so; a cotton/natural fiber based one will loosen a lot on very humid days, so take that into consideration.