Ported versus sealed speakers: is one type better?

The same driver in a sealed enclosure will play lower in frequency than will the same driver in a ported one,

Kind of/sort of. Given the same driver in two ideal cabinets, the ported version will have a lower -3 dB, but since the slope is 4th order (24dB/Octave) instead of 2nd order (12 dB / octave) at even lower frequencies the sealed will catch up. I encourage you to grab a box simulator to prove this to yourself, or look up any woofer in the Madisound woofer list and compare the -3dB points of their recommended cabinets for just about any woofer. Here’s a random example:

https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/approx-10-woofers/satori-wo24p-8-9.5-egyptian-papyrus-cone-woo...

As you can see here, the highest -3dB point is achieved with the recommended sealed box.

but with lower output above resonance.

Simply not true. Again, with the same driver in 2 ideal cabinets the ported vs. sealed cabinet has exactly the same output above resonance as the cabinet volume and alignment is no longer involved and is purely a function of the driver motor. This is true for all open back drivers, not just woofers. This is something I actually learned in audio engineering class with Dr. Leach ages ago. I encourage you to read any book on speaker design to further your understanding.


Best,


E

Here my more simple answer, as a lot of the more technical details were shared already. 

Closed cabinets tend to sound more 'dry' compared to ported / bass reflex designs. 

So bass reflex design will sound LESS dry, by comparison and all this, even when either design is properly implemented. 

Also, practically all closed cabinets have to use more stuffing, expensive sheep wool preferred to plastic / hollow fibre to make the bass drivers 'see' more internal volume, where as ported bass reflex cabinets need usualy a far more minimal rip-wool sheeting, layed on all surfaces exposed to the bass drivers. 

Since the internal pressure in enclosed cabinets is immensely higher, internal braceing becomes more critical than in an open, bass reflex designs. 

To build very large closed cabinets becomes very critical, to impossible.
I suspect, why designers doing this, went for airplane Dur-aluminium material rather than super-wood or wood laminate. 

There is plenty more to all this, but this came to my mind on the subject, with out going into issues of Q, vs internal volume etc. etc. 

M. 🇿🇦 

PS: Early Watt/Puppy versions had some problems with their port design (too small in diameter vs required length), producing quite critical bass response issues. 

bd24 is right but the result is that the ported design sounds as if it has more bass. Ported designs can be excellent such as Wilson's but the vast majority of them are colored. Designing ports is easy. It is just a math problem. I think where most designs fail is in implementation, cheap materials, resonant enclosures etc. 
I do not like any enclosure except for subwoofers. Open baffle speakers crossing over to subs at around 100 Hz work great. I use dipole ESLs
For subwoofers sealed is absolutely best. With signal processing and a very powerful amp you can make the driver do whatever you want. As long as the enclosure is inert you are in business. The best designs now are "balanced force." You put a driver in opposite sides of  sealed enclosure so that their vibrational forces cancel out. 
Infinite baffle design was mentioned. Bozak used Infinite baffle enclosures. This requires a large enclosure. Large enclosures are difficult to keep quiet. The bigger the board the more prone to vibration and resonance it is. Bozak used 3/4" plywood. The Bozak enclosure was a musical instrument. My father had a pair. With a Dynaco Stereo 70 they played very loud with rich chocolate flavored bass. They were colored as hell but to an 8 year old kid that system was the nuts.
In my own experience except for subs, the best enclosure is no enclosure. 

This is a really interesting thread, and because of my technical ignorance I don't have anything factual to add; but my own experience after having owned almost 20 pairs is that while I have enjoyed the sound of a good sealed box speaker, I think that in comparison to a good ported speaker, like the Spendor SP100, or my present Klipsch Epic CF- 4, the bass of the sealed enclosure doesn't  "breathe" in the same way. It sounds a little too tight, or maybe a little constipated. The way that the ported enclosure releases the bass notes into decay just seems more realistic to me.  
Having said that, I know that there are a lot of poor ported designs; and I've owned a couple that sounded hollow and boomy when they hit certain notes. I would also add that I have not heard the best of the current sealed designs like Magico and YG Acoustcs, so I can't speak for what they sound like.  

A lot of c**p being sprayed around here.
Drivers have a huge amount of specs and have preference for one or the other enclosures if built correctly.
To say to plug a port on a ported enclosure and believe the same driver is still in now an ideal sealed enclosure is BS, and then there’s the stuffing that comes into it.

In my first post, Nevile Thiel (rip) has said the correct thing.
Also he said to those that don’t know, to get a the same depth of lows that a ported box has from a sealed enclosure, size is greatly increased, and I’ll add, sealed also tighter/dryer and less colored when done right.

Cheers George