Port Location - Front Or Rear? (1 Viewer)

[Wayne Cook]

IF you took a small commercially made bookshelf speaker and modified to a front port and slightly increased the internal volume what would be the change in sound quality?

I understand that there are a lot of other parameters that would have to called into play but generally speaking what do you think would be the outcome?

thanks

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Wayne,

I'm going to move this to our DIY area, where our resident speaker builders hang out...

They should be able to help you.

-Vince

 

[Anthony_Gomez]

Just so I have this clear:

You have a small bookshelf with a rear port. You want to move the port to the front, incease the cabinet volume (what dimension are you going to change?) and keep the port length the same as the original.

Is this correct?

 

[ThomasW]

Port placement isn't critical as long as the port as room to breathe. So don't put a port on the back of the speaker then set the speaker inside a wall unit.

Generally speaking it's not a good idea to mess around with a retail design, unless you have access to the T/S parameters of the driver and some test equipment,

 

[Wayne Cook]

Vince, sorry about using the wrong forum. :b
Anthony, the speaker is about 13"H x 8"W x 9"D, I was thinking about changing the height to 17" to give room for a front port. I was going to resize the port if necessary.
ThomasW, you have a point there.
The whole thought process came about because I was going to veneer the speakers, they are currently black. I felt that before I did that I would take one of them, increase the height, move the port to the front and then hear the differences, if any.
I have the time and the equipment so that isn't really an issue, I just want to make sure that what I end up with isn't less than I started with.
Keep in mind my knowledge in this is somewhere between zero and nothing. I had felt that increasing the enclosure size a little might help the bass response.
thanks for your thoughts.
Wayne

 

[Hank Frankenberg]

My suggestion is to buy a pre-engineered kit, build itand veneer it. If you can do the cabinet construction, buy a kit that includes only drivers and crossovers. If not, buy the cabinets pre-built or at least pre-cut. If the kit design has a rear port, you can move it to the front with no ill effects if there's room on the front. Why do you want a front port? Does your speaker placement dictate a position with the back of your cabinets just a couple of inches away from a wall?