When people say ported enclosures are "louder", what does that mean?

[Mass Car Audio 10+ year member]

wtf is this? Of course ported is louder all the way to tuning.

WTF are you talking about man. I don't even understand what the hell you mean by lower all the way down to tuning.

Do you even understand a passband wave vs tuning ?

 

[Slo_Ride 5,000+ posts]

lmfao son said how a shout is louder than a whisper
dead

damn right son.

 

---------- Post added at 11:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:22 PM ----------

 

WTF are you talking about man. I don't even understand what the hell you mean by lower all the way down to tuning.
Do you even understand a passband wave vs tuning ?

louder

 

[Beatin' 10+ year member]

WTF are you talking about man. I don't even understand what the hell you mean by lower all the way down to tuning.
Do you even understand a passband wave vs tuning ?

ported boxes will extend the F3 found in a sealed box setup to the tuning frequency of the ported box, where the frequency response will sharply fall.

Too much box volume will give you heavy output around the tuning frequency. Lesser box volume will give less bass around the tuning frequency but will give a pronounced hump in the upper bass range.

Either way, they are ALWAYS LOUDER than sealed setups.

 

[Umbra]

Thank you i2ain2thunder and JFOODSTAMP for your insightful responses.

I understand what the word "louder" means in general use. I thought maybe I phrased my question poorly, but maybe I failed to realize a fundamental.

I was under the assumption that "loud" meant just that - loud, as in if you placed a mic outside the car to meter a burp it would measure sick deebeez, and that wasn't necessarily related to how the soundwave moved through the vehicle and shook the cabin. I thought that ported enclosures sounded louder while sealed enclosures weren't as audible, but vibrated the car just as much, or perhaps a little less. If I've been wrong all along, if it's simply all about the decibels and ported enclosures deliver more of those easier (at the expense of SQ and space), thus shaking a car more, please correct me.

Also MASS CAR AUDIO and Beatin', who replied while I was typing.

 

[Beatin' 10+ year member]

basically put, the louder the sub plays inside the car whether it's ported or sealed, the more you will hear it on the outside.

People go with ported enclosures generally because they are more efficient in creating louder output with less power.

 

[Slo_Ride 5,000+ posts]

Either way' date=' they are ALWAYS LOUDER than sealed setups.[/quote']

sorry bro but this is not true.

 

[bbeljefe]

When you consider the same sub on the same power in the same environment with properly constructed boxes, ported will always be louder than sealed. Likewise, it will always have a wider bandwidth unless the particular box is designed for a narrow passband and a high acoustical peak. Likewise, sealed boxes do not extend as low as ported boxes, again, when they're properly designed.

Regarding sound quality, that's a highly subjective term but if we look at bandwidth as a comparator, ported boxes can trump sealed every time. They can be designed to produce a flat response from just blow tuning all the way to the mid bass region if the sub is capable. Sealed boxes cannot produce the low end extension of ported alignments unless they're huge and when that's the case, they usually have an odd peak in the upper sub bass region.

 

[Mass Car Audio 10+ year member]

That's what I was saying, the pass band slope of a porter box will fall quicker when played below its f3

 

[Beatin' 10+ year member]

sorry bro but this is not true.

.......all else being equal.......

 

[Beatin' 10+ year member]

That's what I was saying, the pass band slope of a porter box will fall quicker when played below its f3

nope, it will fall quicker under the tuning frequency, which MAY or MAY NOT be F3. Smaller ported boxes F3 will be pushed higher in the frequency range, yet the tuning frequency is still well under F3. The slope for such a setup will look like a sealed response shape until the tuning frequency is reached, then the slope becomes -24db per octave and falls hard.

 

[phemps 10+ year member]

Potential sig gold mine, ill be keeping an eye out on this thread

 

[d77543020 10+ year member]

what would you say like 95 percent of the setups on this fourm are ported that must tell you something

 

[Slo_Ride 5,000+ posts]

.......all else being equal.......

yeah 999 times out of 1000. all things being equal.

 

[Slo_Ride 5,000+ posts]

ahh i still dont know if i can agree to that

 

[bbeljefe]

That's what I was saying, the pass band slope of a porter box will fall quicker when played below its f3

Everything is falling below F3. That's the point at which the response has already fallen by 3 decibels and it has nothing to do with tuning frequency.

In the end, it all depends on the sub and the box. Some subs will do very well in small volumes with low tuning and others need higher tuning and/or more volume.

There are myriad factors to consider and the neat thing about vented enclosures is that they can be tailor made for virtually any desired response... including low end extension that does not fall quickly below tuning.