Which one do you think sounds better? (1 Viewer)

[terence]

Ported speakers or sealed speakers? The reason why i asked is i thought it would be interesting to hear opinons on this subject.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

I have always been a fan of sealed setups. But carefuly
designed bass reflex setups can near the quality of an
acousticly suspended box (cad has really helped the design
of bass reflex systems tremendously)

My mains are ported... it's how they can get the output
and extension out of a pair of 10's.. But I would rather
have 2 sealed 12's

 

[Arup]

I have a Yamaha NS-1000x with sealed acoustic suspension design. The specs claim it goes down to 40Hz and in reality it does go down around 45Hz. However the bass performance is magnificient at that range.

I also have Yamaha NS-300 towers with dual 10" woofers which claim to go down to 35Hz. It goes there most of the times but not as tight as the older NS-1000x with acoustic suspension design. However unlike the NS-1000x, the NS-300 are of narrow design and much lighter compared to the 50lb NS-1000x mid tower beasts.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Arup,

Yeah that's one key area where Bass Reflex comes in handy
and that's packaging size. My Towers footprint is roughly
7" wide and like 15" deep (32" tall) and they go down to
32Hz (Tuning) and roll off from there.. They do 20Hz but
down -15 by the time they get there.. And they get a bit
flabby below tuning.. Down to FS they are very tight.

 

[Arup]

Brett,

I guess the speakers now a days are designed to fit nicely in the room and from HT perspective they have to look good. I guess this is one of the reason for prevelance of bass reflex design.

I must say though that compared to earlier flabby bass reflex designs, modern bass reflex have improved a lot.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Arup,

Yeah as much as we're not suposed to admit it I do like my
speakers to look as good as they sound (Don't tell anyone I
said that ok? Shhh....) Slender and tall with a low footprint
is preferable for taking up minimal space yet having enough
internal volume for large drivers.

I certainly won't argue Bass Reflex has come a long way and
with proper design the Transient Response and Group Delays
can be "close" enough to that of an Acousticaly Suspended
design and as long as you don't go below tuning on the Bass
Reflex it will remain tight and fast. But take it below the
tuning (as is the case with my AR9's) and they do tend to
get flabby that is just the nature of the beast with any
Reflex design running unloaded below it's tuning.

But down to 32Hz it's amazing how tight and accurate they
are even compared to my dual sealed 12's in my car which are
very tight!

 

[Chu Gai]

I wish I had an answer for this. I'll simply say that the world of speakers involves trade-offs and you can find excellent as well as poor examples of both. Sealed though I think is easier to build for the DIY person.

 

[Kevin_R_H]

Terence,

To me, there is no answer. It's like asking "Which direction should someone travel from their home to get the best restaurant meal - East or West?" There's no right answer - it depends on where you live.

When it comes to audio, it's not the "design philosophy", it's the "designer's skill".

Kevin

 

[terence]

Thanks for your response Kevin. I understand what you are saying and agree. I just wanted to see what people prefer, sort like a poll for interesting reading for all. I like to to hear what audio enthusiast are thinking.

People on this board are very intelligent you can always learn something from someone or just have fun reading others thoughts on certain topics.

 

[JeremyFr]

I personally dont see one being better than the other it truely comes down to drivers/design used & what is going to be the the use of the speaker itself. My home sub is ported but because of it being an 8" sub etc it still retains a very clean even and fast response and sounds great. My old car sub was a JL Audio 12" sealed enclosure and most people could not believe how low and hard it hit yet remained an outstanding quality and tightness. I think alot of car audio people come under the influence that a ported enclosure hits lower, and harder and uses less power than a sealed setup and quite frankly its just not true. like I said I really think it comes down to drivers used and design used.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Jeremy,

Well it's true there is no clear cut winner and both have
thier trade offs. But there are certain truths about each
that are long based in fact. One of these facts is that a
sealed enclosure has better dampening control and will let
you run more power into the same speaker without loosing
cone control.

Ported designs have good cone control untill you dip under
the tuning frequency and that's where everything comes
unloaded and you can easily over extend a cone in this
manner. That's why the HT guys will generaly run a subsonic
filter on a real crazy ported sub because the last thing
you want to happen is tune it to 20Hz and have it come
unloaded playing a 17Hz tone and shoot the cone out of the
basket

Either way though, Vented or Sealed they can both be done
right and they can both be done wrong. Either one can sound
stellar!