Ported v Sealed

[HenryPercy]

I notice that Ascend speakers are ported, whereas the Rythmik subs are sealed. Is there a design philosophy that determines this difference?

- Henry

[davef]

I notice that Ascend speakers are ported, whereas the Rythmik subs are sealed. Is there a design philosophy that determines this difference?

- Henry

Not so much as a difference in design philosophy -- more so, our loudspeakers are ported so that we can reach our performance goals of bass reproduction while maintaining good efficiency.

Subwoofers, like the Rythmik, are self powered and have equalization and filter stages --- reaching performance goals with these types of subwoofers is easier compared to a passive loudspeaker. A subwoofer designer has many options on how to reach their bass extension goal and since the subwoofer is self-powered (and increasing wattage these days is inexpensive), a target sensitivity or desired efficiency is usually not important.

In addition, since the woofer in a subwoofer has much more inertia than the woofers in our loudspeaker, using the "air-spring" of a sealed enclosure offers many more audible performance benefits then compared with differences between a sealed or ported loudspeaker...

Hope this makes at least some sense (I had minimal sleep last night and my brain is slow today)

[jk121764]

Seems to me that very few speakers are sealed. I've owned many speakers but the only pair I remember as being sealed are the Hales T-3's I had quite few years back. They were a bit lacking in bass but had some of the best spatial fidelity I've ever heard.

[scape]

Dave, now that rythmik is apart of the speakers, are you thinking of going the sealed route for any future products, or is that what the benefit of the port-plugs are for (this type of flexibility)?

[DougMac]

I notice this is your first post, welcome to the forum!

Dave gave an excellent synopsis. It's been my (somewhat limited) experience that it's not so much the fundamental design, ported vs sealed that matters, it's the understanding of with the appropriate execution of the chosen design that matters. I can make make an argument that Advent speakers took the market by storm when first introduced not because the sealed design was inherently better, but because it was so well executed.

Also, notice that there are both ported and sealed Ascends. The sealed HTM 200's are amazing speakers for their size and price point.

Several years before purchasing my Ascends, I was able to home evaluate a number of speakers, some sealed, some ported. Three sets of ears did a blind listening test. The speakers that were rated best unanimously, including depth and smoothness of bass, was a ported speaker.

I think the Rhythmik's designers took into consideration footprint. As Dave mentioned, couple a powerful amp to a well designed woofer and enclosure and you can get a smaller sealed to go as deep and strong as a larger ported sub. Add servo control and you've got a killer sub design.

[HenryPercy]

Thanks to all who replied.

Dave, your reply had exactly the info I was looking for. I do have one (hopefully just one) follow up question - Is there an inherent (or typical) difference in the sound of sealed and ported speakers in the upper bass and midrange regions, all other factor being equal? I realize that all other factors are never equal, and I assume one could build a superior speaker using either design, but I mean "equal" in the sense that both speakers have been maximized to produce their best sound quality and equal SPLs?

I'm asking this because it seems that the best bass and midrange sound I've heard (to my ears) came from sealed speakers. Granted, I'm sure that I've listened to far fewer audiophile quality speakers than other folks here.

Doug -

Thanks for the welcome and the other info. I'm sort of a re-entrant to audio, as it's been a long time since I bought any new equipment. After I posted my original message, I saw that Ascend offers many more speakers than I originally found.

Just curious, but which main speakers do you have?

Thanks.

- Henry

[DougMac]

Thanks to all who replied.

Doug -

Just curious, but which main speakers do you have?

Thanks.

- Henry
Henry,
I'm running 340's as L/C/R, 170's as side surrounds and 200's as rear surrounds. They're in a dedicated HT. I also listen to music and video concerts and I think they do a great job.

[davef]

Dave, your reply had exactly the info I was looking for. I do have one (hopefully just one) follow up question - Is there an inherent (or typical) difference in the sound of sealed and ported speakers in the upper bass and midrange regions, all other factor being equal? I realize that all other factors are never equal, and I assume one could build a superior speaker using either design, but I mean "equal" in the sense that both speakers have been maximized to produce their best sound quality and equal SPLs?

Hi Henry,

All things being equal -- a sealed speaker will have a more accurate transient/impulse response. This can be audible. The flip side is that a ported design will have less cone movement above the port tune frequency, which will result in lowering various distortions, which can also be audible.

I have listened to truly awe inspiring ported loudspeakers and the same can be said of sealed designs. It is all in the implementation...

[HenryPercy]

Thank you, Dave. That's very informative.

[davef]

Most welcome!!