Sealed vs. Ported Speakers


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Are ported speakers inherently inferior to sealed speakers? If so, why?

It seems the higher up you go on the speaker pecking order, the ports disappear. Same with subwoofers, ports disappear as the price goes up.
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128x128mitch4t

Showing 2 responses by wolf_garcia

Magicos seem to be the primary example of modern sealed design, but they're so expensive they sort of have their own little world most mortals can't enter. Also, some designs have a port with a passive speaker plugging it up to aid in efficiency and halt the dreaded "port chuff" that I personally haven't ever noticed, but then I don't stick my head near the port very often (unless, unfortunately, I've passed out on the floor behind my speakers). I think of transmission line speakers are a good idea in the "ported" camp and wonder why there's not more of that sort of thing.
PMC Makes well regarded transmission line speakers that include a bookshelf model, and they aren't so large, and the insanely popular Bose radios are nothing but plastic boxes with a couple of cheap drivers loaded with transmission lines...a concept Bose laughingly claims to have invented. I also had "woofer pumping" issues when I re-introduced my LPs to my system, and that was remedied first with a pair of Nakamichi line filters, and then with the subsonic rolloff switch when I bought a Cambridge 640P...a feature most phono preamps don't seem to have.