Sealed vs Ported

[rmcda90]

First off, hope yall had a good christmas and a happy new year. Second, I am going to be building a system in my 97 Ford F150 extra cab-third door, I'm kind of old school, by that I mean I've been out of the hole system building process for awhile hell I dont even know how to use a ipod or mp3 or any of that other crap but I do know one thing, I love bass not the fish, I have torn all the carpet out and the back seat. I'm thinking of a wall build maybe 4 15's or something. Some of the subwoofers I have been looking at can only be used in a ported box and I have only done sealed boxes, so what's that all about. Which is better? And any ideas on what to do would be great.

[Team_DC-Derrick]

which subs? my DC lvl4XL 15s are in a sealed box and i was told they should be put in ported :x

[Jared420]

First off, hope yall had a good christmas and a happy new year. Second, I am going to be building a system in my 97 Ford F150 extra cab-third door, I'm kind of old school, by that I mean I've been out of the hole system building process for awhile hell I dont even know how to use a ipod or mp3 or any of that other crap but I do know one thing, I love bass not the fish, I have torn all the carpet out and the back seat. I'm thinking of a wall build maybe 4 15's or something. Some of the subwoofers I have been looking at can only be used in a ported box and I have only done sealed boxes, so what's that all about. Which is better? And any ideas on what to do would be great.

I guess it depends what you are really going for in the setup. I dont have a ton of experience with ported boxes but I feel like sealed boxes hit more of a range of bass high and low, and ported is better around the tuning frequency. Usually you can get louder ported.

[curse]

ported is generally louder, and from what ive read (little) sealed hits a wider range but wont hit lows like ported, if a ported box is tuned low.

[cqtama]

it all depends on tuning, generaly a ported box wont play notes much lower then an octave below tuning frewuency very well, i would try and tune around 32-35hzt if you plan on building a ported box. its really not that difficult, i like them better and theres lots of resoureces and references on this forum if you need help. slot ports are pretty easy to build. just make sure you follow the design to the tee or it will mess up your tuning

[Jared420]

Really depends what your goal is for your setup.

[abervintageman42]

ported is generally louder, and from what ive read (little) sealed hits a wider range but wont hit lows like ported, if a ported box is tuned low.

depends on subs, airspace and things of that nature, ive heard 2 15's sealed that got wayy lower than my 2 12's ported did

[Arnold55]

sorry to butt in your thread but how do you tune the box?

[Ndnkobra]

sorry to butt in your thread but how do you tune the box?

The way the port is constructed and designed. Length, width and size of the port.

[Nightshade]

What's going to be loudest is if you put the sub in a sealed enclosure and then attach a ported enclosure right in front of the sealed woofer. That would be a variation of what's called a bandpass. Actually it would be a 4th order bandpass and SHOULD be louder and more efficient than both a sealed and ported enclosure. There are other versions of bandpass designs, but if you are looking for overall loudness they are going to be your best bet. They will have a very limited range of frequencies that they will play loudly, but in that limted range they will outperform both ported and sealed boxes that peak around the same freq.