i went from sealed to ported and im going back sealed (well technically IB).. ported is too peaky for me. yes ported gets louder overall.. but a sealed box will get louder while still blending better generally..
sealed will also play lower.. and im talking about below tuning freqency of a ported box.
sealed boxes are generally for more SQ oriented systems...the boxes are more forgiving to design flaws but are much less efficient than a properly designed ported box. They take more power to get loud, but the box is smaller
There is a trade off for everything, ported box= more efficient, meaning less power will get you louder. Sq CAN be obtained by a properly designed ported box, but most ported boxes are designed for loudness. And they are bigger than a sealed box for the same sub