JL 12W6 bandpass or ported?

[xploder 10+ year member]

I have an original JL 12W6 subwoofer. It is presently in a bandpass enclosure that I built a couple years ago with specs from JL audio. Question is would the sub work better in a ported enclosure? Would it be louder and sound better? If so how big should I make the box and to what frequency should I tune the ported box to? Available power is not an issue as I have a 500watt mono amp. thanks.

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[kingpin_jeffie 10+ year member]

Personally Id go ported but thats just becuase to me bandpass sounds a bit muddy. Yours might not and could sound good so I guess Im just biased.

 

[packerfan 10+ year member]

Ported, do 3.2 cubes after displacement tuned to 33hz and you will be amazed....trust me, i have a 12w3 in that box and its simply amazin. I also swaped in a 12w6 for a few hours with less power in the same box and it was just as loud in the same box with less power.

 

[holycrap 10+ year member]

band pass boxes are designed to hide distortion

go ported

 

[xploder 10+ year member]

I am new to this board. thanks for all the replies. "Packerfan" I think I will do as you say and build a box to that specs. I am all excited to hear how it sounds.

 

[havoc06 10+ year member]

bandpass boxes were actually a thing of the 70s that were used when amplifiers didnt have crossovers built into them. a sealed chamber firing into a tuned chamber created the 30htz to 80htz filter, roughly speaking. Since amps have crossovers now built into them, they are basically useless...they take up too much space, and even if you look at curves, they have less output than a ported box. . Basically the point of my rambling is to go with a ported box, and totally forget that bandpass exists...

 

[xploder 10+ year member]

i cut up and destroyed my bandpass box and took out the JL12w6. I built a ported box at 2.775 cubic foot and tuned to 34 hertz. I used the WinISD pro program and highly recommend it. The bass is way better now. Much deeper bass and louder too. When using the WinISD program I was able to plot both the bandpass box and ported box together and could easily see what frequency's I was. Mostly low bass overal ouput. What amazed me is when I plotted both boxes at 40 hertz I was getting a 4db gain with the ported box while the bandpass box had no db gain (0 db). Ported box 5 db gain at 45 hertz and bandpass box 2.5db gain. Never again am I building a bandpass box. Thanks for all your help.

 

[supermanseth]

im pretty new at boxes, i am selling my alpine E12 and im buying a 12w6 and i was wondering if anyone had a layout for a ported box that i could build. I honeslty have no idea what you guys mean when you say tune it to 45 hertz or anything else so if smoeone could give me the box design with measurements and maybe a little descripition of box tuning that would be great