When we first began building speakers, we did not offer grills. Later, we offered them by request. Finally, we decided that all speakers would ship with grills.
So a number of early speakers did not have built-in magnets. Since the MBOW1 was a precursor to the CAOW1 and then the Songsurround I's, it may be that the speakers you purchased did not have magnets. You can test this yourself by checking to see if there are magnets in the four corners of the front baffle. If there are not, you would have to attach any grills by another means (Velcro tabs for example).
Either way, grills would be available.
As for unanswered emails, what address did you use? I am usually very good at responding to emails, but I don't recall ever receiving any on this topic.
- Jim