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RE: Some sealed vs vented ramblings

Posted by Duke (D) on December 22, 2009 at 21:51:29

In Reply to: RE: Some sealed vs vented ramblings posted by hahax@verizon.net on December 22, 2009 at 21:12:18:

Thanks for posting, hahax.

I agree with your observation that most vented-box speakers are made to impress the uneducated, especially if the audition is a short one.

While it's true that a sealed box has better time-domain behavior, I'm not convinced that's of audible significance in and of itself. Group delay on the order of what we find in a good vented system hasn't been shown to be audibly significant on music in blind listening tests, whereas frequency response definitely is audible. I think the subjective differences between sealed and vented enclosures are primarily a function of the in-room frequency response, and in general the rolloff characteristics of a sealed box are a better match for "room gain" due to boundary reinforcement in most rooms. But it is possible to tune a vented box to mimic the rolloff characteristics of a low-Q sealed box (or maybe an even shallower rolloff) and in that case it sounds tight and fast. I don't recall what sort of slope a Bessel tuning has, but from your description I'd bet it's on the gentle side.

I'm doing some prosound work, and if one knows in advance the bandwidth of the signal the speaker is going to see, an appropriate choice of tuning frequency can significantly increase the excursion-limited power handling in comparison with a sealed box.

I presume the conversation you describe was with Andrew Jones of TAD. If I had a storefront, I'd want to carry his speakers... whether they're vented or sealed or stuffed with fresh cow pies, they sound great.


Me being a dealer makes you leery?? It gets worse... I'm a manufacturer too.

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