Oh yeah, I wanted to explain sealed versus ported a little(very little). I could go on for hours about the differences, but let me tell you why most people think what they think.

When a woofer is used in a sealed box, it takes less air to get a response that would be similar in a ported box. The ported box needs to be much bigger to have the same flat response. When a woofer is used in a ported box that is too small, the response curve of the woofer/enclosure combination gets a big hump in it. Fortunately, in most cases this big loud hump in the response is right at the frequency we want to be loud. We now hear our selected boom frequency very loud.

When this happens a boomer says "wow my ported box is louder than my sealed", and he is correct. It is louder at that one boom frequency. This is where the problem comes in for those of you who want it to "sound better". The other frequencies are so soft compared to the one loud one that all you hear is the boom frequency. Without the other frequencies being audible, we do not have music and instead we have one loud bass note.

Don't blame the enclosure type or woofer, blame the designer!!

 

You get a 3DB drop with a ported box too.

 

you mean increase

2003.5 G35C 6MT Blk/Blk

 

Yes. 3DB Louder. (My ears are still ringing from when I had posted it). Was thinking hitting harder=lower=drop. lol. I just know you get an increase in the bass db level with a ported design. =)

I will post pictures soon of my install. I am almost finished. Total spent was around $5,000.00 and $4,000.00 in wheels & tires and engine Mod's.

<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small"><EM>Edited by cloudkid on 04/07/04 08:13 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

Actually guys, to be more specific, depending on your enclosure and vehicle, you will get a gain at certain frequencies and a lose at others. Most ported boxes are designed to give a boost of about 3db, but you can design it to give you much more than that and 6-10db is not uncommon. Like I said previously, all things are a trade off. The more boost you design in, the less output you will get from the very low frequencies when compared to a sealed box. It has to do with "ripple" and "slope". If anyone would like me to describe this in detail, please let me know. Happy boomin'.

 

Please explain the "ripple" & "slope" effect. Thanks!

 

Okay-

I have been trying to think of an easy way to explain this without the use of graphs and overly complicating things. If you are really interested, I can send you links, but I will give you a very brief overview.

All speaker enclosure setups have a certain response curve. The curve represents the output the speaker box/woofer will have at a given frequency. Typically, as you get into lower and lower frequencies, the output starts to lessen. The amount the output starts to lessen, if plotted, would look like a slope. A ported box has a rather steep slope compared to a sealed box.

Typically an enclosure setup will have a fairly flat curve until it starts sloping downward at the lower frequencies. In a ported box, peaks in the flat part of the curve are common. These peaks are called ripple. The more ripple you have the less flat your response curve is. Since our goal is to have the flatest response possible, large amounts of ripple are usually undesirable unless you are purposely centering the ripple at a certain frequency to reinforce that frequency. This is what SPL guys do. They find the frequency in the car that is naturally the loudest due to the car's acoustics and then build an enclosure that has a large peak at that frequency.

Sorry, got a little jumbled, but I was trying to be informative and at the same time keep it simple.