ssa car audio forums?
- Thread starter Reaper6
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Try us, if the guys here dont know, (car audio forum...Gary1970, 6Appeal, Dave Navone, and Richard Clark) then you are asking the wrong question. There are a lot of us here that have been neck deep in high end audio and theory 20+ years. What the issue?
i was wondering what would sound better, ported or sealed. i have researched this and got mixed answers. what do you guys think? my mistake for posting this bad thread, i was kinda pissed of all the hate stufff i got on that site for asking this question.
The SSA forum had turned into @#%^.
There are enough guys here that can answer the questions. If one doesn't know, another probably does.:biggrin:
The sealed or ported question you just left wide open.
Both can sound great, but which enclosure depends on the woofer you want to use and how much room you are willing to give up. If you give us a little more info on the woofer or woofers you are looking at, we'll be more that happy to put our 2 cents in.
I like both enclosure types. I have a sealed enclosure in my truck right now because I needed a small box (1.1 cu ft). So I got a woofer that would work in a small sealed enclosure (JL Audio 12W6AE). Nice tight bass, but it rolls off on the low end, so no real strong deep bass. One of my GN's has a ported enclusre in it. It is huge (5 cu ft). It takes up the entire package shelf and then some. I have a Cerwin Vega Stroker 12 in it. It will rip your head off. Super loud and plays low. It will hit that 18 hz note in in Planet Krypton (Superman movie). I also built all the speakers in my home theater set-up.:tongue: :biggrin:
John
Thanks for the props Greg!!!!!
There are enough guys here that can answer the questions. If one doesn't know, another probably does.:biggrin: The sealed or ported question you just left wide open.
Both can sound great, but which enclosure depends on the woofer you want to use and how much room you are willing to give up. If you give us a little more info on the woofer or woofers you are looking at, we'll be more that happy to put our 2 cents in. I like both enclosure types. I have a sealed enclosure in my truck right now because I needed a small box (1.1 cu ft). So I got a woofer that would work in a small sealed enclosure (JL Audio 12W6AE). Nice tight bass, but it rolls off on the low end, so no real strong deep bass. One of my GN's has a ported enclusre in it. It is huge (5 cu ft). It takes up the entire package shelf and then some. I have a Cerwin Vega Stroker 12 in it. It will rip your head off. Super loud and plays low. It will hit that 18 hz note in in Planet Krypton (Superman movie). I also built all the speakers in my home theater set-up.:tongue: :biggrin:
John
Thanks for the props Greg!!!!!
I love the vega stuff. It's more of a frat house type speaker but, can be installed in some very high end systems. I remember seeing the Cerwin-Vega van at IASCA nats one year. 20,000 watts and 12 18s in it. The van was white with black dots all over it. When they turned it up just a little, your vision blurred and the van turned gray.
You can build a box for very tight bass by adjusting the system Q and force the sub to a lower frequency than what the box is tuned to. That is where the insane, boomy sounding bass comes from. You build a box tuned to 45-50hz and then use things like the epicenter, carver phantom or a parametric eq to force the sub to play those 20hz notes. This forces the system Q up to 1.0 and beyond, this can make the bass sound very loud and boomy. If you want more of that moving air but not so high pitched sound, back off the system q (increase box size or not force so low) and it will be able to maintain the low notes without the higher frequency tuning. There are calculators online that allow you to input your speaker specs and what type of box you want.
Speaker Enclosure Volume Calculator
Speaker Box Designer / Calculator
i think i understand now, so a sealed works better when you have smaller spaces, and ported for the larger ones. thanks for your help
Correct, for the most part.
Works the majority of the time, but every woofer is different. Some woofers that work better in a large enclosure, some in a small enclosure, no matter the enclosure type (sealed or ported). Don't want to get deep into the physics or theory behind speaker design, since I don't have a diving bell handy.
:tongue: Choose a couple of different woofers, let us know your choices. We'll toss out some box ideas. Several of us have box modeling software, which helps make quick work box tuning.
John
SENSITIVITY!!!! This is always a critical thing when getting subs that you need to be even somewhat loud. The cerwin-vegas were known to be 98-105db per watt. Low sensitivity subs will need lots of power to get to the same level. Also look at qts of the speaker. It falls in line with what I said about tuning. If you want clean tight bass, shoot for no less than .3 and no more than .5 when installed in a box. You will have to have a good system to make the sub stay under control and not roll off into distortion. Bouce a few sub models of this post, I'm sure something will work out for you.
My brother took his '93 Sentra down to Daytona one year and was only allowed to compete in the proclass because he arrived late. Man were they pissed when this kid from kentucky took third among all the cars that had corporate sponsorships. His system was all Precision Power amps/eq ,Image Dynamics horns, mids and JL subs. Driven by a higher end alpine unit. He was very good friends with a guy at one of the high end shops here. He just took his car in and set it up to be flat across the board. When the judges stuck the RTA on it, everything was flat...he just took pics of every setting on his eq. For the sound quality side, he mounted the horns in the roof of the car. They fired forward and bounced back at the two front seats. The sound stage was near perfect. I think the only thing they knocked him on was the installation wasn't like the pro cars had. It can be done on a budget.
My brother took his '93 Sentra down to Daytona one year and was only allowed to compete in the proclass because he arrived late. Man were they pissed when this kid from kentucky took third among all the cars that had corporate sponsorships. His system was all Precision Power amps/eq ,Image Dynamics horns, mids and JL subs. Driven by a higher end alpine unit. He was very good friends with a guy at one of the high end shops here. He just took his car in and set it up to be flat across the board. When the judges stuck the RTA on it, everything was flat...he just took pics of every setting on his eq. For the sound quality side, he mounted the horns in the roof of the car. They fired forward and bounced back at the two front seats. The sound stage was near perfect. I think the only thing they knocked him on was the installation wasn't like the pro cars had. It can be done on a budget.
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all this is true AND...
sealed= accurate tight bass (hard rock,sq).
ported/slot vented= boomy deep bass (rap and country)which is more efficient too as already stated...
each design will have its pros and cons.just decide on what the box sounds good in YOUR car.theres no right answer.what ever the customer likes is the best>>>>
also,thanks for the compliment too Greg.....
sealed= accurate tight bass (hard rock,sq).
ported/slot vented= boomy deep bass (rap and country)which is more efficient too as already stated...
each design will have its pros and cons.just decide on what the box sounds good in YOUR car.theres no right answer.what ever the customer likes is the best>>>>
also,thanks for the compliment too Greg.....
I like sealed enclosures for their accurate sound when done correctly, and if volume is needed add more power, or more woofers. A few years back my daily driver civic had eight 12"s instead of a back seat...sealed 11cu ft box, and it was VERY loud (4400 watts on them) but playe4d everything well. Ported may add db, but its usually at a peak frequency that will hurt the "real" sound of music as a note rolls past the tuning freq and suddenly jumps 3-6 db. I always recommend build the tightest small sealed enclosure you can, seal all joints, follow manufacturers recomended specs, and you'll be happy 95% of the time.
