whats the difference in enclosures? (sealed, ported and bandpass enclosures)
which is the best/worst?
does it even matter?

 

Sealed = Tight sounding, very punch, nice for Rock and other fast bass music. Better
Power Handling(handles more wattage, safely) -Sound Quality- LOUD

Ported = Loose sounding, extending low end bass response, Great for Electronic
music, techno, some rap, rock that hits low notes(sublime, 311, what not)
-Average Quality- LOUDER

Bandpass = Boomy sounding, limited bass response, Usually for Rap, Industrial,
Other boomy sounding music, mostly for show purposes, poor power
handling. -Worse Quality- LOUDEST

 

well.....ur not too far off......you hit the nail on the head with the sealed enclosure....almost always what is used for sound Q........however, the ported is actually the loudest type of box you can get.....just as long as the sub/amp combo is correct for ported enclosures......bandpass boxes are produced for efficiency....lets say you have a single 15 rated at 500 CONTINUOUS watts RMS...but you only have a 300 watt RMS amp.....if you went with a bandpass box, you would pretty much have the same SPL as the 15 in a ported box with 500 watts RMS instead of 300.....now if you bumped the 15 and bandpass up to a 500 watt amp....you would probably actually loose SPL.......go to an SPL competition.....all the dB competitors will have ported boxes.....

 

Ported boxes are "tuned" to a certain frequency so you shouldn't buy a premade one. It should be custom made to your subwoofer specs. Also they are generally "one wonders", meaning they play loudest around the frequency they are tuned at.

Many Sound Quality competitors use a ported box tuned to the 20-30hz region for the low end extension and then have a sub in a sealed enclosure or strong midbass drivers to cover the higher bass notes.

 

exactly......the fact that they are tuned means you can set all your crossovers and bass boosts just right around that point for optimum spl.......i had a single 12" DVC fosgate sub with an x-plod 1000 watt amp runnin 1 ohm in a custom box designed and built by me :D .....the box was tuned to 37 hz. and the amp had a bass boost at 40 hz......in a JDM 1st gen eclipse i had it hit 150.4 dB......great part is....the whole system only cost me $200 (sub and amp) plus 50 for the wood for the box.....

 

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dont forget about clam shell and isoberik to

 

clamshell is a type of isobarik

 

who wants to build me a ported boxt for 2 12" in muh' xa???? any takers....

 

If you want those 2 12's to sound like 4, let me know

Kind Regards,
Matt