For subwoofer;
Word on the street says.. if you made a box and wanted to stick a port in it,
it wouldn't matter if the port was in the front, side or rear, same performance.
On the other hand, if you had a rear port and placed the woofer next to a wall where the port is 'corner loaded', I wonder if it will create a different 'sound'. I can hear corner loading effects of my line array, one tower is in the corner with four 6" rear ports firing into that corner, sorta like a horn loading effect [corner loading],
and I hear more bass from that tower, albiet a small difference from the other
tower that is not corner loaded. But the box is tuned high at 100hz, not
20hz so I'm not sure if it would be audible tuned lower as the wavelength is
larger.
I think most people that make rear ports do it for other reasons.. Because there is
no room on the front baffle? To eliminate the perception of port noise? To hide the port from plain view?
My rule of thumb is... ditch theory and build the test box to simulate your
application, ie build a test box with a front port and rear port, plug the front port [unplug rear port]
and listen... then unplug the front port and plug the rear and listen.... What sounded better ?
