HELP! wall speaker grills refuse to release

2trakehners

Folks,
Bought a new house and someone has painted the wall mount speakers. They are not recoverable. I need to replace them, have no idea what model they are - but I absolutely cannot get the grills off. There are 4 of them in the walls: 2 in front, 2 in back. Original renovation was in '91. I've put a putty knife around all edges to break the paint seal, thinking there would be a couple of clips to snap off. Nothing. When I pull at the grill, the drywall is pulling away in a 2" area at each top corner.

Can anyone help me?
Thanks,
Tracey

rallyshark

Try going around the edges with a razor knife, and then try to remove them. If that doesn't work, well you just may have to mess up some dry wall:( The good thing is that it's an easy fix to the dry wall if you do mess it up. A little putty, some easy sanding, and then some paint. Good luck. I hope that helps:D

2trakehners

Thanks Rallyshark,

I did that. I can push a putty knife in 1/2" all around the grill edge.

Do you happen to know what holds the grills to the speakers themselves? OR could they possibly slide up or down on a housing in a channel or something? I hate doing drywall repair :<

/t

obieone

Just out of curiousity, do you not like these speakers?
If they sound like poo, then, IF you have a drill and a 'unibit' or 'step-bit' you can try drilling out in the approx. area you think the anchor screws are, then just UNmount them.
A unibit looks like this:

2trakehners

I'm afraid the speakers literally have paint on them from when the room was painted, so they are unusable - they just sound terrible.

Thanks for your advice. I'm just surprised no one knows how the grills attach, or perhaps grills for different speaker models attach differently. I was hoping not to damage the installation mounts for the speakers themselves so that I could replace them easily, but I may have no other choice.