Ported vs. Sealed

[3rdGenFanatic]

What is the difference in performance between these two types of boxes?

[Vanilla Sky]

a sealed box will give tighter response, meaning punchy bass good for reproducing kick drums, bass riffs and synths... usually you have a bit better power handling here, but still never overload the output driver

a ported box will emphasize a fairly narrow band of frequencies... this is why you hear "ported box tuned to 38hz" or what-not... this box configuration allows for better effeceincy, but at a loss of accuracy... a ported enclosure best reproduces a bass drum, full bass notes (as opposed to riffs), and instruments such as pipe organs



some subs only tolerate one enclosure type... always research this prior to a purchase... likewise, some subwoofers reproduce notes differently, as well...

i hope this helps

oh, one more thing... don't always thing cheap = shit... the best thing to do is pick the best for the application, then price shop

[87AccordsterLx]

What type of music do you like? Your decision should be based on that primarily.

[3rdGenFanatic]

I listen to a lot of Jungle/Drum n Bass. It has a wide range of bass frequencies. I also noticed that when I listened to Trance/Dance, I was getting a lot of my range cut out when I had my Jensen 10" in the bandpass... It would distort in between kicks, so I supposed sealed would be better.

[Vanilla Sky]

the best would be either a set of 12's in a ported box, or a set of 15's or 18's in a sealed... with those combinations, you get some of both, the punchy bass, and the low entrancing bassline of the techno

if you wish, we can talk via AIM to pick out what's best for your application in terms of subwoofers and amplifiers

[XPAIN]

A Vented Box will give you higer average output than
sealed and realy deep bass response whit lower power..
BIG and LONG BASS...

The Sealed will give you more sound quality, kick bass...
and also high power hanling at all frequencies...

If you like Euro pop (electronic music) you will whant the
sealed box and 10" or 12" Speakers...

15" and up will give you a Big and Long Bass, and you dont
whant that, because the beats like, Drum n Bass, Jungle, Trance,
Hard House, and more.... are fast and also, they use to have more
than one bass beat ( different tones ).

What will happen whit the Vented box whit 15" is...
you will hear the bass kick of your mid Speakers ( door speaker ) in this case the 6.5 before your sub kick.

My opinion is to get 10"s and sealed box for that cain of Music..
Also if you whant to have 15"s get Mid-range Live audio Speakers... or DJ Speakers , the only problen is, those will eat your amp and they use to be 8 ohms... so you will need 2 and a 4 ohms amp. if you are goin to do that I recomend to use JBL live audio or meyer sound but those are arround $1000 each...


ORRRRRRRRRR use what you whant and get a live audio Crossover whit a 12V to 120V converter... that way you can modify your sound, and make your Speakers Rave whit U...


they should be more options but i dont know a lot about car audio.

I'm DJ...

[3rdGenFanatic]

I've been spinning trance, jungle, and hardhouse for four years. I think the two tens in a sealed would be good also because the speaker has to be able to come back in time to catch the bassline in between every hit of the drum in trance/house, so I'll need to catch all the frequencies. Thanks for your help guys. I've already bought a A Pioneer TS-W12C 10". I'll grab another one and a box in a few weeks. If anyone has an amp up for sale or a sealed box for two 10's, please let me know.

[AccordEpicenter]

Ported play deeper and lower IMO but dont play as tight, dont hit as hard but if youre going for SPL then ported is probably your thing, if you like SQ with your SPL then go sealed. Usually the bigger the driver the deeper it plays, not always true but most of the time. Dont buy it when people say that 15s cant sound good, the best sq system Ive heard to date was 2 JL audio 15w6 sealed, tight deep and pretty low too. BTW bandpass plays the deepest of all box designs but also is not as tight as ported or sealed.

[87AccordsterLx]

look... there are a lot of different opinions on whats better for what but the facts are this: if you want a tighter sounding and more responsive feedback get a sealed box with 10's. If you listen to the ocasional R&B / Hip Hop / Pop style music then maybe go with 12's. I have 2 12's in a sealed box and I listen to techno/trance, pop, rock, rap, r&b... and so on. They all sound great with my setup. If you want to listen to mostly rap and r&b then I would go with ported or bandpass in either 10's or 12's... you never want to go bigger then 12's because you lose out on a wide varity of music that will sound good. If you dont need it to be all that powerful get one 12 and a good name brand amp with 400-800 watts and your more then set.

To Sum. up:

10's or 12's
Sealed (sounds best for techno etc.)

http://www.ghalili.com/Nathan/Nate's%20Page/3gs/3gbeats.jpg

[XPAIN]

Make your box ... that way you have the corret Box volume/size
for your Subs... I think those Subs need a 1.75 cubic feet box if if
a sealed box... but I'm not shure. ( check the sub's book ) and
also I think they are arround 400W RMS, so you will need a 400W RMS AMP or more... but not to much ... that way you dont have to
use your amp's max power.

I dont realy know how to explain you because of my english. but
i will try.


400W RMS SUB whit a 500W RMS AMP that way the amp
can give you the 400W whitout problems and ( Very important )
Whitout Distortion...

REMEMBER:
if your amp have more W than your sub, dont turn him to the max.
and if you are using more than one sub ( or going to) check your amp and subs Ohms.

whit a 4 Ohms amp you will need 2 8 Ohms subs but if you want
4 subs you will need 4 Ohms subs...


AND REMEMBER TO GET GOOD MIDS..........
at least for the front doors....

[Vanilla Sky]

live sounds speakers WILL NOT WORK WELL with car audio apps... most of them are 8 ohm, some are 6... 8 ohm doesn't create a problem, but 6 does... not many amps can safely run thier peak power at 6 ohms... another really major thing is the size of the cabs these come in... why so big? that's what makes them so effecient... it's thier ability to play in a large cab, and utilizing it to its fullest...

another thing... you try to match the PEAK of the amp to the RMS of the sub... goin the other way, or goin RMS for RMS could easily damage either peice of equipment

one more thing... size doesn't mean anything when it comes to clarity and response... it's more in the build of the subwoofer that makes it slower to respond or what-not... then you have to think that with all else equal, a larger cone is more efficient at playing PERIOD... this is why in competitions you see mostly 15's or larger in a subwoofer...

fanatic has 2 10's, and as it looks, we are gonna install that into a 2.2 cube sealed box... this meets the specs of the sub (well, it's withing .1 cubes of spec) and is pre-fab... this will mean a lot of trouble gone becuase he no longer has to build a box... all he has to do is hook up his subs and screw them in and hook the box to the amp... from the way he's talkin, it sounds like he's running a stereo setup, so that means 2 channels at 4 ohms, so he's good there

hope this all helps

[87DXHatch]

I seriously want to cry...

To try to battle what some of these people are saying would take at least an hour of typing replies.

AccordEpicenter I would say is far and away the most accurate of all the replies on here. I pretty much agree with everything he says except the bandpass comment.

Everyone else... :rolleyes:

All I will add for right now is that the sub plays such a huge role in whether it will sound good ported or sealed, that most of the myths that are being spread in this thread are totally foundation-less.

[3rdGenFanatic]

Vanilla Sky Helped me with my solution. Thanks though guys. I took a lot of notes from your input for later use.

[Vanilla Sky]

i was talkin with the subs being equal... anyway, this wasn't a post about boxes... and what i said was THE most accurate info in this thread... oh, and hatch... i've built, modified, and destroyed more boxes than you could ever think of building and modifying... go to any reputable audio store and as the same question fanatic asked...

all-in-all, this is a box thread, not sub thread, and if you didn't notice, i said that different subs perform differently in different enclosures... IE: some subs are best in sealed, other best in ported, and yet other built to perform best in a bandpass enclosure... oh, then you have free air subs in which you could use an infinite baffle for

EDIT: foundationless?? shit man, what you smokin??? physics man... that's how it all works... if you understand physics, then building ANYTHING is easy... my comments were based on my own buildings and modifications...

[87DXHatch]

Okay, this is kinda off-topic from the original question but here goes... ;)

So you're telling me that the comment:

the best would be either a set of 12's in a ported box, or a set of 15's or 18's in a sealed... with those combinations, you get some of both, the punchy bass, and the low entrancing bassline of the techno
has a foundation somewhere? How many 15's and 18's do you know of that have a high enough BL to sound good in a sealed box (without it having to be gigantic)? I know of about 3 or 4 (Brahma 15, Elemental SP 15, RE XXX 15 and 18...). You are trying to tell ME about physics? No comment...

How about:

8 ohm doesn't create a problem, but 6 does... not many amps can safely run thier peak power at 6 ohms
ANY car audio amp rated @ 4 ohms can push an 8 ohm load, a 6 ohm load and everything inbetween. If the amp just shut off at 6 ohms then you're f*cked to try and play ANY MUSIC AT ALL!!! Ever look at an impedance graph? The impedance of the VC of a sub varys depending on the frequency... the JL 12W3 has a 30 OHM PEAK at a certain frequency.


then you have to think that with all else equal, a larger cone is more efficient at playing PERIOD... this is why in competitions you see mostly 15's or larger in a subwoofer... I don't know where you get this from, but it's flat out wrong. The size of the cone has absolutely nothing to do with how efficient a sub is. Inductance is the key factor in how efficient a sub is... not cone size. And people use those larger subs at comps because they can play louder and handle more power than smaller subs, NOT(!!!!!!!) because they are more efficient...

Sorry for the harsh sound of the above, but Vanilla, you really remind me of a friend I have how claims to know all about this and that and the other thing but when it comes down to doing it, they either really know NOTHING or simply can't do it. I just find it extremely hard to believe that at 16 (or 17, I can't remember) you've done all that you have claimed in all your posts (not just the audio ones, the ones about the insane mods you're planning on doing and your car is nothing more than a skeleton that doesn't run).

Have a nice day :wave:

[87DXHatch]

So essentially, Vanilla, what you're telling me is that without a job (to buy the fabled components you speak of), and without a car stereo , and without a working car, you know more about car audio than me... even though I have had many different systems in my car (bought with the money I get from working my 3 jobs) and I have spent nearly every night for the past 6 months researching the subjects? Tack on to that the fact that I get together with a guy in the very high end car audio business once a month or so to test new products and discuss "car audio"?

[Vanilla Sky]

ok, on a few of the parts, i stand corrected... but you hadn't had the conversations with him stating that size of the box didn't matter, that he never used the trunk... this meant he could use a 3-4 cube (whatever he could fit) for the subs...

as to the lack of experience and lack of job for money for materials... most of the components i have used weren't mine... that's like trying to say the late dale erndhardt (i know that's spelled wrong) wasn't experienced because it wasn't his car?

oh, and in theory, with all else equal, the larger cone should move more air and produce a higher sound pressure level... i would be correct there, right?

i don't have any hard feelings or anything, but this is just what i've read in many different reputible sources, and i think a couple times i forgot what the hell i was talking about so i just BSed a bit :rolleyes: to try to make myself sound credible lol

[87DXHatch]

No hard feelings ;)

I didn't remember where the part of trunk size came into play... :confused:

BUT, Dale Erndhart (misspelled) did have his own car that he could drive when he wasn't on the track... I don't think that was a very good analogy, but I understand now that you just use other people's stuff.

You are correct, everything else the same (equivically) the larger cone will move more air and be louder. That isn't the same as being more efficient.

:wave:

[Vanilla Sky]

the trunk space came into play via an AIM conversation that fanatic and i had

the dale sr thing.. i meant race cars... he didn't drive his own car... that's what i was getting at

[87AccordsterLx]

oh well the kid has his setup so this thread is pretty much just bickering now. I hope your getting a sealed box with one 12 or dual 10's/12's. If not you are going to regret it once you realize that you cant play half of the music you want to play. BTW. That box with the 2 12's in thats pic that I posted earlier, is going to be slod pretty soon. Im getting one 12 in a sealed box because the damn box weighs 75 pounds. Plus a single 12 can perform equal to duals if you set it up correctly.

[dXsquared]

the DJ guy said some fucked up shit

with a 4 Ohms amp you will need 2 8 Ohms subs but if you want
4 subs you will need 4 Ohms subs...

you can run 4 ohm subs off a 4 ohm stable amp... you can run 2 ohm subs off a 4 ohm amp... yes... 8 ohm subs can be run, but most car subs are 4 ohm... house and DJ subs are 8 ohm...

scenario 1
2 channel amp
4 ohm stable
2X 2ohm subs
run each off seperate channels and it will work

scenario 2
same amp as #1
2X 4 ohm subs
run then the same as #1... but the power will be less

scenario #3
same amp
2X 8 ohm house subs
run them bridged and the power will be that of a single 4 ohm sub bridged

scenario #4
same amp
1X 4 ohm sub
run bridged
MOST POWER TO THE SUB... all the power will be sent to this sub


Travis

[87DXHatch]

Originally posted by 87AccordsterLx
oh well the kid has his setup so this thread is pretty much just bickering now. I hope your getting a sealed box with one 12 or dual 10's/12's. If not you are going to regret it once you realize that you cant play half of the music you want to play. BTW. That box with the 2 12's in thats pic that I posted earlier, is going to be slod pretty soon. Im getting one 12 in a sealed box because the damn box weighs 75 pounds. Plus a single 12 can perform equal to duals if you set it up correctly.

I would have to disagree.

I think the biggest problem most people have is that they have heard ported boxes that: 1) prefab 2) tuned too high 3) incorrectly built.

Every ported box should be built for the specific sub it's going to have. The prefab boxes sound terrible because they are just designed to be loud, and that's it.

If you tune it too high, music will sound like mud but be loud as heck.

If you build the box incorrectly... well I think that speaks for itself ;) :D

I have heard ported set-ups that sounded VERY musical. It's all about doing a good job with the box. Unfortunately, 99% of people out there have no idea about how ANYTHING car audio really works, enclosures being an area where the majority of people are ignorant. Heck, if you want to come up to MN this summer, I'm going to be making a ported fiberglass enclosure for a Brahma 12 or 15... if you want to hear an unbelievably musical sub that gets "wake the dead" loud, come on up ;)

1 12 could outperform 2 12's in only a few ways:

the 2 12's are wired out of phase with each other cancelling each other out and producing NO bass (in theory :tongue: )

The 1 12 is ported HIGH and the 2 12's are sealed...

The subs are different brands or different series of the same brand or other crap like that making the whole point moot.

So essentially... 2 subs will be louder than 1 sub in most circumstances, unless the 1 sub is a "super sub," which are becoming more common nowadays, or there are other special circumstances.

[87DXHatch]

Originally posted by DXHATCHBACK
the DJ guy said some fucked up shit


you can run 4 ohm subs off a 4 ohm stable amp... you can run 2 ohm subs off a 4 ohm amp... yes... 8 ohm subs can be run, but most car subs are 4 ohm... house and DJ subs are 8 ohm...

scenario 1
2 channel amp
4 ohm stable
2X 2ohm subs
run each off seperate channels and it will work

scenario 2
same amp as #1
2X 4 ohm subs
run then the same as #1... but the power will be less

scenario #3
same amp
2X 8 ohm house subs
run them bridged and the power will be that of a single 4 ohm sub bridged

scenario #4
same amp
1X 4 ohm sub
run bridged
MOST POWER TO THE SUB... all the power will be sent to this sub


Travis

My question is... who the hell are you talking about? :confused:

If
you can run 4 ohm subs off a 4 ohm stable amp... you can run 2 ohm subs off a 4 ohm amp... yes... 8 ohm subs can be run, but most car subs are 4 ohm... house and DJ subs are 8 ohm... is what he said, I don't see what's so "fucked up" about it... all of that makes sense and would work.

I guess I just reserve "fucked up" for things that truly ARE fucked up :tongue:

[n88accordLX-i]

Originally posted by XPAIN
A Vented Box will give you higer average output than
sealed and realy deep bass response whit lower power..
BIG and LONG BASS...

The Sealed will give you more sound quality, kick bass...
and also high power hanling at all frequencies...

If you like Euro pop (electronic music) you will whant the
sealed box and 10" or 12" Speakers...

15" and up will give you a Big and Long Bass, and you dont
whant that, because the beats like, Drum n Bass, Jungle, Trance,
Hard House, and more.... are fast and also, they use to have more
than one bass beat ( different tones ).

What will happen whit the Vented box whit 15" is...
you will hear the bass kick of your mid Speakers ( door speaker ) in this case the 6.5 before your sub kick.

My opinion is to get 10"s and sealed box for that cain of Music..
Also if you whant to have 15"s get Mid-range Live audio Speakers... or DJ Speakers , the only problen is, those will eat your amp and they use to be 8 ohms... so you will need 2 and a 4 ohms amp. if you are goin to do that I recomend to use JBL live audio or meyer sound but those are arround $1000 each...


ORRRRRRRRRR use what you whant and get a live audio Crossover whit a 12V to 120V converter... that way you can modify your sound, and make your Speakers Rave whit U...


they should be more options but i dont know a lot about car audio.

I'm DJ...

Do you actually have any idea of what your talking about? :rolleyes:

[n88accordLX-i]

Originally posted by 87DXHatch


To try to battle what some of these people are saying would take at least an hour of typing replies.

AccordEpicenter I would say is far and away the most accurate of all the replies on here. I pretty much agree with everything he says except the bandpass comment.

Everyone else... :rolleyes:



Actually Vanilla Sky has the most accurate comments

Quote from epicenter--->

Ported play deeper and lower IMO but dont play as tight
dont hit as hard but if youre going for SPL then ported is probably your thing

(Not true, depends on port size, box size and tuning)

Usually the bigger the driver the deeper it plays, not always true but most of the time.

(Not true either, an 8" will play as low as an 18", but not nearly as loud as the 18" if comparing the same brand)

BTW bandpass plays the deepest of all box designs but also is not as tight as ported or sealed.

(Also another BS comment)

epicenter im ashamed :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[87DXHatch]

I totally disagree, n88accordLX-i. I said Epicenter was the most accurate because he said the LEAST and was the most accurate with what he said.

I mentioned that I didn't agree at all about bandpass playing the deepest, and as for his ported comment, in most installs (i.e. the person has no idea what the f*** they are doing, or what the F*** the shop did) ported will be sloppier than sealed. Sealed is near impossible to screw up, ported is real easy. His statement was not always true, but damn, compared to sealed set-ups, what percentage ported set-ups that you've heard have sounded "tight"?

Vanilla, however, made a TON of comments that were foundation-less.

But I'd really rather not get into an argument with you n88accordLX-I ;)

[Vanilla Sky]

yeah... for the most part, i was talkin in theory... dave is talking more in practice... yes, i've done a few very good installs myself, i've never done one hwere i picked all the components to go into it... for the most part it was layed out already, and all i had to do was make a modification where needed... i have built quite a few boxes (most in the same manner) and modified quite a few of them, but i've only had to follow a plan layed out when i did build... pre-fab isn't a bad way to go if you don't mind modifying the enclosure, but that most times end up with the same results as a half-assed custom enclosure... personally, i perfer sealed boxes over anything else because i like the sound you get in conjunction with a good sub... to me, most ported boxes sound sloppy (even a whole lot of the better high quality ones i've seen), and to me, bandpass is best used of apps like in a home theatre

dammit, this was supposed to be a two-liner... and look, i wrote another novel

shiiiit

[n88accordLX-i]

Originally posted by 87DXHatch
I totally disagree, n88accordLX-i. I said Epicenter was the most accurate because he said the LEAST and was the most accurate with what he said.

I mentioned that I didn't agree at all about bandpass playing the deepest, and as for his ported comment, in most installs (i.e. the person has no idea what the f*** they are doing, or what the F*** the shop did) ported will be sloppier than sealed. Sealed is near impossible to screw up, ported is real easy. His statement was not always true, but damn, compared to sealed set-ups, what percentage ported set-ups that you've heard have sounded "tight"?

Vanilla, however, made a TON of comments that were foundation-less.

But I'd really rather not get into an argument with you n88accordLX-I ;)

Well yeah, sealed boxes are good all around, you can make a ported box sound tight when its tuned higher around 45hz, but then you lose most lower frequency output, which sucks... and BTW what happend to the postcounts? i just broke 1,000 not too long ago errrr