But it seems to me that there must have been some reasoning behind all of this. For instance it still makes sense to me that if you're after MAX SPL, a ported design has advantages in this area. Because you get both the air moved from the front of the speaker, and the air being moved from the rear of the speaker out the port. If there were absolutely no differences in the two designs, then why is the EP600 ported and the EP800 not ported?
Micah. Though the back of the driver is being used, the volume of the enclosure and the port act both as an amplifyer/resonator and as a filter. The frequencies (and loudness of the frequencies) coming out of the port are different than what you get from the front of the driver.
::runs to make a picture::
Think of the output of the front of the driver as the response of that driver in a sealed enclosure. What you get is a summing of the two to produce the response curve of your ported sub. That is why, for the same driver and without EQ, a ported design will play lower than a sealed one.
The reason a proted sub will play louder is efficiency. You are not wasting any energy compressing air in the sealed interior of the sub. I suspect that a ported design is also more effectively coupled to the air mass in your room (acoustic coupling).
As to why spl subs sound crappy, its how they are designed. The designer does not care about the accuracy of the sound reproduced. He only cares about how much sound the sub can generate in the enclosed space of a car. There is no need to worry about damping or linear excursion or even motor noise. Sounds sorta like music? Gets REALLY loud? We're all good!
Why is the EP800 sealed? Check out
the size of obsi's ED A7-450s. Most people don't want huge boxes in their living rooms.
Oh, and if you want to get super efficient take a look at horn subs. Be warned though, to get a response close to the EP800 you need a sub the size of a large refrigerator!
