I went from a large ported to a sealed for my 15" and WOW

[zoltman1991]

Ok so I want to hear everyone's experience and input.
I have a JD1000.1 pushing a 15". I had it in a large 3.85ft^3 box at 37hz.

It was loud. It was alright. Some songs sounded awful, others great. I felt it wasn't as clean as I'd hoping for and I went for too much SPL at the expense of SQ.

I screwed around and bought a sealed enclosure and wow. I think I like this A LOT more.
I certainly lost some loudness and SPL, but I think it's much cleaner.
Reference: I listen to a lot of heavy bass electronic music - fluid basslines.

What's everyone's thoughts/inputs/experiences on sealed v. ported enclosures?

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[Blackout67]

Don't forget to lower the subsonic. If it's a quality subwoofer with a lot of xmax and decent power handling, just go ahead and turn it off completely

 

[zoltman1991]

Don't forget to lower the subsonic. If it's a quality subwoofer with a lot of xmax and decent power handling, just go ahead and turn it off completely

The LC2i as built-in 33hz. I presume this will be okay, right?

 

[Blackout67]

The LC2i as built-in 33hz. I presume this will be okay, right?

That's ok yea. But one of the advantages of a sealed box is the roll of slope. IIRC it's usually 12db/octave vs a typical ported boxes 24/DB roll-off. Don't quote me on that but I know the sealed roll off is significantly less steep.

I don't know what car you drive, but if it's cheap and easy to install, I'd ditch the LOC and get an aftermarket headunit, or a Bluetooth receiver with RCA outs. 30hz and below is the super tactile bass that makes your body panels wave.

 

[zoltman1991]

That's ok yea. But one of the advantages of a sealed box is the roll of slope. IIRC it's usually 12db/octave vs a typical ported boxes 24/DB roll-off. Don't quote me on that but I know the sealed roll off is significantly less steep.

I don't know what car you drive, but if it's cheap and easy to install, I'd ditch the LOC and get an aftermarket headunit, or a Bluetooth receiver with RCA outs. 30hz and below is the super tactile bass that makes your body panels wave.

2020 Lexus ES350 so that stock HU is going nowhere lol.
I think I like the sealed sound more.
Now as far as building back SPL.

two 12's sealed v. one 15" sealed.
How would two 12's ported compare against a 15" sealed?
-would I be back to where I started and just want to go back to sealed?

 

[Deiimos]

The great thing about audio gear, there is a different stuff to chose from, use what you find to be better! Nothing wrong with that. I prefer vented.

 

[Blackout67]

Sealed SPL is determined by cone displacement. Find the cone area measurement chart off Google in millimeters then multiply that by the xmax of the subwoofer, also in mm, so find how much air it displaces. Multiply it by two for the 12s. If that amount is larger than the single 15, go for the 15. Total Harmonic Distortion, or THD as listed in most speaker websites will be halves for two subwoofers as the signal is split between the two. You probably won't be able to hear this in a car with the engine on, especially when going 70 down the free way, at least not with a testing instrument giving you a visual representation.

Also how large a sealed box is determines how low it plays. So even if the two 12s displace more air, if the box is small then it will not get very low. Since you are in a small sedan, a single 15 might be better cause it will require a smaller box than two twelves

As for the LOC, look into this. Has all the features and more that a $200 headunit would give you, without the dumb bloat features the same headunits have. 4 RCA outs for your amps, remote turn on, and it's Bluetooth

 

[Old_Slapper]

When porting for sound quality, I tend to port at a higher frequency. I will port the sub at 45hz. Maybe 40hz, but not lower.

 

[Jimi77 Premium Member]

Ok so I want to hear everyone's experience and input.
I have a JD1000.1 pushing a 15". I had it in a large 3.85ft^3 box at 37hz.

It was loud. It was alright. Some songs sounded awful, others great. I felt it wasn't as clean as I'd hoping for and I went for too much SPL at the expense of SQ.

I screwed around and bought a sealed enclosure and wow. I think I like this A LOT more.
I certainly lost some loudness and SPL, but I think it's much cleaner.
Reference: I listen to a lot of heavy bass electronic music - fluid basslines.

What's everyone's thoughts/inputs/experiences on sealed v. ported enclosures?

Ported combined with cabin gain can create a very unbalanced response, which in turn can sound muddy or just wrong. For example, one of my first systems was a 12" sub ported and tuned to ~40hz. Got really loud, but the bass guitars in rock music sounded more like the bass lines in rap music. I was much happier when I switched to dual 12s sealed.

 

[shredder1 10+ year member]

When porting for sound quality, I tend to port at a higher frequency. I will port the sub at 45hz. Maybe 40hz, but not lower.

When porting a sub higher tuned, especially in a larger enclosure the peak will usually match cabin frequency and be boomy AF. Large enclosures with a higher tuning used to be the spl secret way back in the day, among other things.. Now its tune around the same and pour on the power as power is way cheaper than it once was along with driver power handling/capability. Through testing I went from a 6.5ft3 ported to 5.5ft3 ported and not only was I hitting better #'s with the smaller enclosure, power handling was greatly increased with the same tuning. And a lot less boominess when playing music... lol.

Sounds to me like a decent ported enclosure is what you need.

 

[Old_Slapper]

When porting a sub higher tuned, especially in a larger enclosure the peak will usually match cabin frequency and be boomy AF. Large enclosures with a higher tuning used to be the spl secret way back in the day, among other things.. Now its tune around the same and pour on the power as power is way cheaper than it once was along with driver power handling/capability. Sounds to me like a decent ported enclosure is what you need.

Boomy is quite right, but it is a smoother boom, rather than a punchy boom. When porting lower, I find the sub frequencies will drop off after 50z, then get a little louder around 40hz. It doesn't have a smooth transition. Porting lower makes the lower frequencies louder, but EDM basslines don't usually go below 40hz. It's usually around 50hz to 70hz. Porting at 45hz will increase the volume, and punch, from about 60hz to 35hz, if I remember right. It's been a while since I have seen the specs, and it also greatly depends on the sub.

 

[1aespinoza Premium Member]

When porting a sub higher tuned, especially in a larger enclosure the peak will usually match cabin frequency and be boomy AF. Large enclosures with a higher tuning used to be the spl secret way back in the day, among other things.. Now its tune around the same and pour on the power as power is way cheaper than it once was along with driver power handling/capability. Through testing I went from a 6.5ft3 ported to 5.5ft3 ported and not only was I hitting better #'s with the smaller enclosure, power handling was greatly increased with the same tuning. And a lot less boominess when playing music... lol.

This is the kind of info that would be great in the enclosure forum.

 

[Blackout67]

Boomy is quite right, but it is a smoother boom, rather than a punchy boom. When porting lower, I find the sub frequencies will drop off after 50z, then get a little louder around 40hz. It doesn't have a smooth transition. Porting lower makes the lower frequencies louder, but EDM basslines don't usually go below 40hz. It's usually around 50hz to 70hz. Porting at 45hz will increase the volume, and punch, from about 60hz to 35hz, if I remember right. It's been a while since I have seen the specs, and it also greatly depends on the sub.

I feel like that is more of a result of the cabin gain of your car and box size rather than tuning frequency.

If the box is massive there will be a huge leak around tuning frequency. Kind of the reason I I don't use huge boxes anymore I just don't like the way they sound on the subwoofers I like to use. And if you look at the slope of a subwoofer with good motor force in a small box like 1.75 cubes tuned to 30hz, the slope is much more gradual rather than on a bigger box tuned higher and Unless you're in something as large as a Suburban or similar, you're looking at cabin gain around 40-50hz.

Or you can just use a sealed box. I just switched to a sealed 18 inch and I'm loving it. Much more shallow slope and don't need to use subsonic filter so I get a nice rumble out of the low end music without having to worry about a nasty jump in the frequency response due to port tuning