Sealed or Ported?

Which is better? Which gives louder bass? Which has better sound? Pros and Cons to each. The box will be in a 1991 cadillac deville so alot of trunk space.

better?
depends on the person

which is louder?
ported

better sound?
depends on the person and the specifics of the boxes

pros of sealed:
easy to build/design
takes up less room
generally gives the flattest in-car response

pros of ported:
much louder, especially around the tuning frequency
can give the flattest anechoic response, depending on the tuning frequency
can give you a retardedly powerful low end if you tune low, which makes it great for rap
at the tuning frequency you can feed tens of thousands of watts into a single sub without bottoming out out, just by nature of how ported boxes work. This makes them great for SPL competition, but you can't keep this much power going for more than a couple seconds or you'll fry the voice coil.

ported=greater than sealed at times...

Yea, it definitely depends on the type of music you listen to or the type of bass you are looking for. Ported is better for low rumbly bass while sealed is better for deep bass. Sealed boxes also tend to be more accurate than ported boxes, for instance if your playing a rock song that has fast beats, a sealed box will keep up with faster beats better than a ported box. Sealed boxes also make your amp put out more power than ported boxes to move your subs. But if you're looking for loud spl bass than go ported, it will almost automatically give you an extra 3db over a sealed box.

Ported is better for low rumbly bass while sealed is better for deep bass. Sealed boxes also tend to be more accurate than ported boxes, for instance if your playing a rock song that has fast beats, a sealed box will keep up with faster beats better than a ported box.

um, no

Yea, it definitely depends on the type of music you listen to or the type of bass you are looking for. Ported is better for low rumbly bass while sealed is better for deep bass. Sealed boxes also tend to be more accurate than ported boxes, for instance if your playing a rock song that has fast beats, a sealed box will keep up with faster beats better than a ported box. Sealed boxes also make your amp put out more power than ported boxes to move your subs. But if you're looking for loud spl bass than go ported, it will almost automatically give you an extra 3db over a sealed box.
Obviously someone has never properly built their own ported box

Are you kidding? If you play a Korn cd, a sealed box will pick up beats, especially the faster ones that a ported box doesn't. Sealed boxes are definitely more accurate for the most part than ported ones. How can you dispute that sealed boxes are more accurate while ported boxes are louder for the most part, and better for spl? "ported=greater than sealed at times..." is a pretty vague statement, maybe you should elaborate on that?

sealed for the same sub require more power to push it, and you will hear tighter bass.

ported is easier/cheaper to make louder, which - like every one says, is great for rap.

i ran two sealed 10's in my car because i listen to mostly rock/punk. the rap i did listen to i just had to turn my remote gain down so the speakers didnt go crazy with the lows. the subs very extremely responsive and clean.

well i listen to mostly rock, but every once in a while i like to turn it up to some low bass rap songs to listen to. so i want loud deep bass, but clean

Are you kidding? If you play a Korn cd, a sealed box will pick up beats, especially the faster ones that a ported box doesn't. Sealed boxes are definitely more accurate for the most part than ported ones. How can you dispute that sealed boxes are more accurate while ported boxes are louder for the most part, and better for spl? "ported=greater than sealed at times..." is a pretty vague statement, maybe you should elaborate on that?

No I'm not joking, but thanks for asking

I dare you to find any song ever made...ever, that makes my sub skip a beat or sound muddy. Mudvayne, Fear Factory, Slipknot, Static-X, Rammstein, In Flames...these are things I listen to daily, bring it on.

And yes I have run my same sub, with the same amp with the same settings, same headunit again with the same settings, and simply swapped the sub from sealed to ported. I noticed a very very slight loss in quality in the very upper bass (150hz region, where the sub shouldn't be playing anyway) and that's it. Everything else became much louder and much more pronounced, which actually let me turn the sub down, limiting its excursion and actually decreasing the distortion.

Are you kidding? If you play a Korn cd, a sealed box will pick up beats, especially the faster ones that a ported box doesn't. Sealed boxes are definitely more accurate for the most part than ported ones. How can you dispute that sealed boxes are more accurate while ported boxes are louder for the most part, and better for spl? "ported=greater than sealed at times..." is a pretty vague statement, maybe you should elaborate on that?

Like I said before, you have never built a proper ported box. Box depends on the speaker, some thrive in ported better than sealed, mine sounds better ported than sealed for example. In all cases a proper built ported box can sound just as as clean as sealed

True, sound depends on the sub as well as the box, but generally those boxes are going to have the characteristics above

http://www.abluesky.com/p_s_gb/p5s9.html

http://www.lightav.com/car/boxes/boxes.html

True, sound depends on the sub as well as the box, but generally those boxes are going to have the characteristics above

http://www.abluesky.com/p_s_gb/p5s9.html

http://www.lightav.com/car/boxes/boxes.html


The first article is written by a company that makes sealed boxes, trying to tell people why their boxes are better than other people's. It's written by a marketer, not an acoustics expert.

The second link specifically says this:
"It is possible, however, for a well-designed ported enclosure to have better transient response characteristics than sealed enclosures with higher Qtc's (above 1.0.) The specific alignment of the sealed and ported enclosures plays a huge role in determining the transient characteristics of each individual subwoofer system."

Most prefab sealed boxes have a very high Qtc because the manufacturers want to make the boxes as small as possible even if it degrades performance, because...well...90% of the people out there aren't willing to give up the space necessary to give the sub a proper box. In this case, most of the time a ported box will sound better than a sealed box. If you compare a proper ported to a proper sealed box, it depends on the driver, many times the ported will sound better, many times the sealed will sound better, it all depends on the specific driver.

anyone else?

hey flsurf,
check out my setup in my signature. the (2) square edges you see under my sub are slotted ports. my trunk floor is raised up about six inches and the ports go down into where the spare tire used to be. this design gives me a tuning range, (vice a tuning freq.) 0f 30-60 hz. that basically means without any signal processing or boosting, all the freq in this range are dramatically louder.

it's perfect for me because i mostly listen to hip-hop / R&B and that's where 99% of the basslines are focused. under the tuning range this design gives you a steep cutoff around 24db's which is useful, especially with my amps infrasonic filter (set at 25hz), to protect my sub from overexcursion. i don't get a lot of sound under 25hz, it's more of a sensation or a vibrating feeling, but it's cool because there's hardly any music that actually plays that low.

if you still think one way is better, my setup is proof that given any properly designed enclosure, whether it's ported or sealed, the x-factors will be with the subs.

Both designs have their ups and downs.
Maybe this will help
http://www.jlaudio.com/tutorials/magic/index.html

edit* didn't see that a different link had already been posted with the exact same "article"