I've found the room plays a defining part in what sounds best with ported vs sealed. My sealed kef q550 sounded great in a small room, loads of tight bass, but too weak in a medium room. I just picked up some ported kef r500. Will be interesting to see if they have too much bass or sound muddy and boomy in the small room and ok in medium size room. I mean they were twice the price, and supposedly a better speaker, and many very expensive speakers still use ports, they shouldnt be worse speakers - IF in the right room.
My JBL studio 580 has a port and a port insert. I keep the insert installed. Can't tell much boost with it out but the bass is definitely more smeared. It might be different if they weren't close to the back wall.
I have sealed in my car because I don't want a giant sub taking up all my space. I have sealed in my apartment because I have a small space. Sealed won't play as loud as ported. But all my stuff is high power so I get big bass out my speakers. Lots of factors room acoustics and types of music played. For home theater ported hits low and hard. For Rock music I love sealed you really hear and feel the drum notes.
Hello sir, your videos are more informative and educative. Actually I have made a 10 litters sealed enclosure for SB ACOUSTIC MW16P-4 6.5” mid bass driver and I have crossed it at 80hz high pass and 300hz for low pass. My concern is whether this specific driver is suitable for sealed enclosure.
Do rear ported speakers send more sound to the back wall? My speakers will be on a party wall and want them firing as much sound forward as possible, I Can't seem to find this answer anywhere. Thanks in advance :)
Good and informative video. My only question left from this video is where does a sealed box with resonator sit, is it close to a ported design, or a sealed? Or is it better suited for entirely different driver characteristics?
Hi Peter, are thinking of a passive radiator? in that case its closely related to ported, but has its own calculation due to weight of the cone and stiffness suspension will affect the result. A resonator is not intended for a box, its also what is called a tactile transducer or an exciter, they get mounted on the structure where you sit typically.
What if i'm using large loud speakers that have 10", 15" and 18" woofers in my atmos system as well as 10" subs? my LCR are all 15" as well as the surrounds and rear heights. my front heights are 10" and my surround rears are 18". All the speakers are ported including the subs but the 18's are sealed. would this all cause infinite sound problems?
Nice video explanation. I'm interested in building a small, around 27 liters speaker cabinet for a full-range SB Acoustics SB20FRPC30-8 and I found that the Efficiency Bandwidth Product (EBP) is 83. Does it mean that this speaker driver is more suitable for a ported speaker or is it ok for a sealed speaker cabinet?
A friend has late 70's Infinity Reference Studio Monitor Speakers , they have acoustic suspension cabinets, their sensitivity is only 88db and therefore the speakers are not easily driven , now he want to know can making a bass port hole in the cabinets on the front make them more efficent , if yes , by how much db in your opinion, thanks in advance for your valuable answer.
Hi Rodney and a good question, unfortunately, it will change the speaker too much to put a port in it, you will get a lot of bass decay because a closed box requires rather high Q drivers and ported low Q if the drivers are something around the middle you potentially can, but the box will typically need to be bigger on top of adding til port. I highly recommend adding a subwoofer, because your speakers very step response will go, and that nicely nuanced bas from Arnies early designs I think is really something, so I will highly recommend not to do it but add a subwoofer, either SVS or Earthquake MiniMe if you really want some juicy lows.
I have a Stereo Integrity M3 mid range. I wanna use it in a pod for my car A pillar. It has a 107 EBP... What should I do? Vented needs to be big. Will I lose quality in a small sealed pod?
I want to keep my box from being too big and plan on using 2 identical woofers, is it possible to have good results with one being in a sealed chamber and the other in a vented portion? in parallel or I could design individual crossovers to make a 2.5 way. Has anyone ever done this? one sealed and one ported in same box? thanks
So I have ported subwoof currently but prefer sealed subs. What would happen if I use something to plug up the port of the subwoof? Would it cause any damage?
i have a 18" 4500W sub that i have in a 10.5 cubic foot enclosure, tuned to 34hz. i just did the math and my ebp is 42.2... i had assumed this was meant for a ported box and the mfg also says either or BUT if the ebp is anything to go by... i should try a sealed box o.O. its quite peaky right now (to be expected) so maybe if the sealed smooths that out i could add a second to help bridge the gap in the output from a ported to sealed... edit: fs=24.9, qes 0.59, qms = 7.38
Hi John, yes that gives you a qts on the driver of approx 0,55 so I will recommend a closed box if you want nuances and a nice natural roll-off , but you will get less extended lows.
my problem with ported designs not even time smearing, but rather i dont like to hear 'woo-woo' produced by box, i would much rather listen to clean signal. and after you know how closed box sound you just cant un-hear this nasty woo-woo sound that just masks the bass, if anything
Overbased (most systems) are crap. Meaning, they sound like shit. It's more base for the sake of more base. It's like a woman with a BBL. yuck. A sealed enclosure is clean and tight. It's like a natural slim fit woman, a dancer for example. yummy!!
Sealed is amazing but doesnt work for all drivers for a balanced natural response, there is no getting around looking at each driver. You need a fair amount of qts compared to your fs not to role off to soon and make it unnaturally anemic.
