Which is louder; 4 sealed subs or 1 ported?

[Suicide Bobb 5,000+ posts]

Pretty much what you're looking at is 2 sealed subs being a little less loud than 1 ported sub. 3 sealed box subs will be near as makes no difference just as loud as a sub in a ported box.

 

[av8ter 10+ year member]

With a older RE XXX 18 sealed in my integra, I was able to get 144dbs sealed on the dash with some tuning and tweaking. On the same power, I got a RE HC 15, ported, up to 146dbs sealed on the dash...

XXX sounded MUCH better but you get the idea.

 

[Wingman0121 10+ year member]

You want SPL loud or daily loud? You can get 150dB from a single SA-8 but it prob sounds like a fart.

 

[AllenH427 10+ year member]

You want SPL loud or daily loud? You can get 150dB from a single SA-8 but it prob sounds like a fart.

...The pros hit 150, he will not even break 140.

 

[Kyle_Keating 10+ year member]

There is no rule that says ported = x sealed, and in fact its only for a narrow range. 4 sealed will pretty much trump a single woofer ported design, but you don't have to ask someone's opinion about questions like this, especially involving the same woofer against two designs. Just find out for yourself:

Download it.

LinearTeam

 

[T3mpest 10+ year member]

There is no rule that says ported = x sealed, and in fact its only for a narrow range. 4 sealed will pretty much trump a single woofer ported design, but you don't have to ask someone's opinion about questions like this, especially involving the same woofer against two designs. Just find out for yourself:
Download it.

LinearTeam

good post Kyle... 4 12's have alot more displacement potential and will be a lot harder to overdrive. Also the type X's sound alot better than the type R's and will have a much flatter frequency response. 4 type X's sealed would be a much better setup than even 2 R's ported, IMO. One type R vs 4 X's is laughable...

Lastly when it comes to how many DB's porting gains you it depends where you tune and how big the box is. You always trade effeciency for bandwidth when you create a ported box. If you tune higher you get more of a peak, but lose ouput below tuning and since your tuning higher you lose alot more down low. You can get a single ported sub to be louder than a pair of sealed subs on a few notes , but assuming equal quality on each sub it wont' do it on a range of notes and that's really what counts for daily. At 60hz it's going to be baseline effeciency and power, 2 subs will amost always beat one sub up top. Down low you'll be below tuning and lackign cone area, so the sealed subs will be louder down there too. A single ported sub will be a little louder in small range and MUCH quieter everywhere else, so it'll also sound like crap. If you port and tune low you can combat alot of this, but in those cases 2 sealed is usually just about even overall with 1 ported, howerver one ported is alot cheaper....

 

[tc300 10+ year member]

i wouldnt use type X's.........

 

[mal1980 10+ year member]

same power in both situations? u may have more cone area vs the +3db for ported, but if u cant move four magnets effeciently enough your 1 sub is gonna tear the four a new *******

 

[T3mpest 10+ year member]

same power in both situations? u may have more cone area vs the +3db for ported, but if u cant move four magnets effeciently enough your 1 sub is gonna tear the four a new *******

more coils/cone area IS more effecient inherently. If you keep power equal, but divide it among 2x as many woofers you GAIN 3dbs' by doing so, even more if they coils are hot enough to experience significant power compression. For example two type R's on 500 watts is going be 3dbs louder than a single on 1000 watts, assuming all else equal so scale the box and port... You'd need 2000 watts on a single driver to equal SPL, again no compression involved which as we know, isnt' near reality. You only need to move 4x the cone area 1/4 the distance to keep equal SPL. You actually have to use 1/4 the power to get 1/2 teh excursion however, both cases work towards 4 12's sealed being louder, especially if we are concerned about a. how it sounds and more about overall ouput, not just one peak measurement on a meter.

There is no magic amount of power that gets a speaker moving. As a matter of fact once you get past a certain point, more power actually STOPS giving you more ouput, or begins to barely add more ouput despite great increases in wattage. doubling power is good for 3dbs, but once you past 1/2 of the speakers RMS, in most cases anyway, you actually gain less.

 

[Supergumby5000 5,000+ posts]

Ported boxes have more output at lower frequencies vs. sealed boxes.

careful with your word selection there......

 

[rc10mike 10+ year member]

Ported boxes have more output at lower frequencies vs. sealed boxes.

Extreme lolz were had...

 

[kr15 5,000+ posts]

Supergumby? Havent seen you on here for a while

 

[RAM_Designs 5,000+ posts]

careful with your word selection there......

Should have said "in the right box", aka, tuned low enough. Even with a 35hz ported box, the response curve of a comparable sealed box for the same sub won't beat it in output except for below 30hz somewhere. The discrepancy from ~40-45hz to 30hz in the ported box would be huge(6-9db), but that's what low tuning is for...which will allow you to beat the sealed box in output at even lower frequencies. If you tune from 27-28hz with a sub that works well in low tuned boxes, you can trump the sealed counterpart from 20hz and up(to a point) with ease, and really, what more would you need?

Extreme lolz were had...

See previous response.

 

[T3mpest 10+ year member]

Should have said "in the right box", aka, tuned low enough. Even with a 35hz ported box, the response curve of a comparable sealed box for the same sub won't beat it in output except for below 30hz somewhere. The discrepancy from ~40-45hz to 30hz in the ported box would be huge(6-9db), but that's what low tuning is for...which will allow you to beat the sealed box in output at even lower frequencies. If you tune from 27-28hz with a sub that works well in low tuned boxes, you can trump the sealed counterpart from 20hz and up(to a point) with ease, and really, what more would you need?

See previous response.

Yup. My subs ported even compared to IB are louder until about 18hz lol. If you tune low enough the bandwidth you gain ouput is so low that ported is just louder in general, unless your ONLY goal is sub sonic reproduction. Also, you need alot less excursion so lower distortion too. For music I really only worry about output down to 25hz. Anything below that I can't hear much anyway and generally you just hear flexing car panels being excited. At 22hz even in my caddy the rear deck flex is louder than the tone. Still have to reinforce it.