What is the difference between anodised and powder coated?

Anodising grows a layer of aluminium oxide out of the metal itself by electrolysis, then dyes it — the finish is part of the metal and cannot peel, and it stays translucent so the surface texture underneath still shows. Powder coating sprays a dry polymer onto the surface and bakes it into an opaque skin roughly 60 to 100 microns thick, which hides the substrate and has a boundary that can chip. Anodising only works on aluminium; powder coating works on almost anything.

Can aluminium be anodised white?

Not reliably. Anodised colour comes from dye absorbed into microscopic pores in the oxide layer, and dye molecules are small enough to enter them. White is a pigment rather than a dye and its particles are too large to be absorbed. This is why white aluminium parts are powder coated across the industry rather than anodised.

What are matte, gloss and brushed finishes?

They are mechanical preparations of the aluminium applied before anodising, not different colours or coatings. Matte is roughened so light scatters evenly and is the standard finish on XSCACE products, in champagne, black and white. Gloss is polished so light reflects at one angle, and brushed carries parallel grain lines so light spreads along a single axis; both can be produced to order but are rarely requested. The anodising dye is identical in all three — only the surface underneath differs.

Why do the same speakers look different in photographs?

Because anodising is translucent and the surface texture beneath it controls how light comes back. Change the angle of the light and the same part returns a different amount of it, so it photographs as a different colour. Two photographs taken on different days under different light cannot be compared to each other — a valid comparison has to be shot in one frame, under one light, in one exposure.

Is champagne the same as gold?

No. Champagne is a standard anodised finish — paler and warmer than gold, closer to a brushed brass than a yellow gold. Gold is produced as a custom RAL order. They are different finishes and the difference is visible in person, which is why we supply physical samples when a project depends on it.

Will two batches of the same anodised colour match exactly?

Very nearly, but not perfectly. Anodised colour is dye held in an oxide layer grown on a specific alloy, so it carries slight natural batch variation. A powder coat is mixed pigment and repeats exactly. If a project needs deliveries months apart to be indistinguishable, specify a coated finish or order the whole quantity in one batch.

Can speaker grilles be a different colour from the speaker?

Yes, and it is often the better choice. Grilles are powder coated as a separate part, so the grille can be matched to the ceiling or wall it sits in while the body carries its own finish. Matching the grille to the surface rather than to the speaker is usually what makes an installation disappear.

What is RAL and why specify by RAL number?

RAL is a standardised colour matching system in which each colour has a fixed reference number. Specifying RAL 9010 means the same thing to every finisher in the world, whereas a colour name like off-white does not. Any RAL reference can be produced on XSCACE products; the surcharge and lead time are stated on each product page.

Can ABS or MDF products be anodised?

No. Anodising is an electrochemical process that only works on aluminium and a few other metals. ABS parts are powder coated or painted, and MDF parts are primed and hand painted. The same RAL colour can be achieved on all three materials, but by three different processes.

Anodised vs Powder Coated: How Speaker Finishes Work

Contents6 sections

A distributor asked us recently for a photograph showing champagne next to gold, because she could not tell them apart on the website. It is a completely fair question, and the honest answer is that a photograph on its own was never going to settle it — not because the photograph would be bad, but because anodised metal does not hold still the way a printed colour does.

This page explains how the finishes on architectural speakers are actually made, because once you know that, the differences between them stop being mysterious and start being predictable. The short version: anodising and powder coating are not two ways of doing the same thing. They are different processes with different physics, and which one a part gets is decided by what the part is made of.

Anodised versus powder coated: the difference is where the colour sits

Cross-section diagram comparing an anodised finish, where a dyed oxide layer is grown out of the aluminium itself, with a powder coated finish, where an opaque polymer layer sits on top of the substrate with a distinct boundary

Powder coating is a coating in the ordinary sense. Dry polymer powder is sprayed onto the part electrostatically and baked until it flows into a continuous skin. It sits on the surface, it is opaque, and it hides whatever is underneath. Typical thickness is somewhere around 60 to 100 microns — thick enough that there is a real boundary between the coating and the part, which is why a powder coated edge can chip if it is struck hard enough.

Anodising is not a coating at all. The part is made the anode in an electrolytic bath and current is passed through it, which grows a layer of aluminium oxide out of the aluminium itself. That layer is porous while it forms, dye is absorbed into the pores, and the surface is then sealed to close them. Typical decorative thickness is 5 to 25 microns.

The consequence that matters: there is no interface. The finish is the outermost part of the metal rather than something applied to it, so it cannot peel or flake. It also cannot be applied to anything that is not aluminium, which is why the same colour has to be achieved a different way on a plastic or a timber part.

Those figures are typical industry ranges rather than XSCACE specifications, and they are given to show the scale of the difference rather than to describe a particular product.

Matte is the standard, and the finish is not what people usually change

Diagram showing matte as the standard anodised finish, with gloss and brushed shown as rarely-ordered alternatives, and how each surface preparation reflects light differently

The anodised oxide layer is translucent. You are not looking at a layer of colour on top of metal, you are looking through a tinted layer at the metal underneath — which means the texture of that metal still shows.

Our standard finish is matte, in champagne, black and white. Gloss and brushed can be produced to order but are very rarely asked for. All three are mechanical preparations of the aluminium carried out before anodising — not three different colours and not three different coatings:

Matte — the standard. The surface is uniformly roughened, so light scatters in every direction and the part reads as an even tone from any angle.
Gloss — to order. The surface is polished, so light reflects at a single angle: bright where it catches the light, noticeably darker where it does not.
Brushed — to order. The surface carries fine parallel grain lines, so light spreads along one axis and the finish changes as you walk past it.

In practice almost nobody changes the finish. What people ask for is a different colour, which is why custom RAL matters far more than gloss or brushed ever will. And the reason a colour like champagne is hard to judge from a website is not the finish at all — it is that an anodised metallic is translucent. You are seeing dye and metal at once, and a colour with metal behind it shifts with the colour temperature of the light in a way a flat printed pigment does not. Add an uncalibrated screen at the other end, and two people can look at the same photograph and reasonably disagree about what they are seeing.

Why white is the exception

Every standard aluminium colour we make is anodised except white, which is powder coated. That is not a preference, it is a limitation of the process.

Anodised colour comes from dye absorbed into microscopic pores in the oxide layer. Dyes work because their molecules are small enough to enter those pores. White is not a dye — it is a pigment, and pigment particles are physically too large to be absorbed. There is no commercially reliable way to produce a true white by conventional anodising, which is why white parts across the whole industry, not just ours, are coated rather than anodised.

It has a practical consequence worth knowing before you specify a mixed scheme. A white part is opaque coated and a champagne part is translucent anodised, so they will not age or catch the light in the same way even though they came from the same factory.

What each material gets

Which process a part receives follows from what it is made of, not from which product it belongs to.

Finishing process by substrate. Matte is the standard finish throughout.
Material	Process	Finishes available	Colour range
Aluminium	Anodised	Matte as standard; gloss or brushed to order	Any RAL, plus the standard range
Aluminium — white only	Powder coated	As the coating specifies	White
ABS	Powder coated or painted	As the coating specifies	Any RAL
MDF	Primed and hand painted	As the paint specifies	Any RAL
Grilles	Powder coated	As the coating specifies	Any RAL

So a single speaker can carry two processes at once — an anodised aluminium body with a powder coated grille — and that is normal rather than a compromise. The grille is a separate part with a separate job, and coating it lets the grille colour be matched to a ceiling or a wall independently of the body.

Custom RAL, and what it can and cannot promise

Any RAL reference can be produced. RAL is a standardised colour system, so specifying one removes the ambiguity of a colour name entirely — RAL 9010 means the same thing to every finisher in the world, where “off-white” does not.

There is one honest limitation. A powder coat or a paint is a mixed pigment, so it can hit a RAL reference and repeat it exactly, batch after batch. An anodised colour is dye in an oxide layer grown on a specific alloy, and it carries slight natural variation between batches for the same reason a natural material does. If a project needs two deliveries months apart to be indistinguishable, a coated finish is the safer specification. If it wants the depth and the durability that only anodising gives, accept that the second batch may be a fraction different and order the whole job at once.

Custom RAL carries a surcharge and a longer lead time than a standard finish. Both are stated on each product page rather than here, because they vary by product.

What this means when you are specifying

Do not judge a metal finish from a photograph, and never from a render. A render shows what a material shader was told to do; anodised aluminium does something more complicated with real light.
Ask for a physical sample when the finish matters. It is the only thing that settles it, and it takes days rather than the weeks a wrong delivery costs.
Expect a white part and an anodised part to differ, because one is coated and the other is dyed metal.
Specify the colour, not the finish. Matte is standard across the range and covers almost every project; changing the finish is possible but is rarely what a scheme actually needs.
Order a whole job in one batch where an anodised colour has to be consistent across many units.
Specify by RAL reference, not by colour name, whenever a third party is producing anything that has to match.
Remember the grille is a separate part with its own colour — matching it to the ceiling rather than to the speaker is usually the more discreet choice.