What to buy? PORTED VS SEALED Subwoofer for Home Theater! Why some THINK sealed is FASTER / TIGHTER

Choose the right sub and don't waste money!!! Ported VS Sealed Subs for clean thunderous bass in your Home Theater. Recommended subs below! Home Theater Gurus.
✅For room plan layout service contact me @
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Recommended subs by price and brand (recommended at least 2 subs per system for seat to seat consistency) 2 good subs will perform better than one better sub. For the most powerful options see the end of the list below. If ordering please use these links which help support the channel.
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✅The new Klipsch RP Subs (Finally Klipsch is getting serious with subs!!)
Ported 12" (Minimum I'd go for Home Theaters of any size) www.audioadvic...
Ported 14" www.audioadvic...
Ported 16" (Ideal for all rooms up to large rooms with multiple subs) www.audioadvic...
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✅Paradigm High output ported
x12 Ported www.audioadvic...
X15 Ported www.audioadvic...
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✅SVS Ported and Sealed
👉Sealed options
Sealed SB2000. Recommended only for smaller Home Theaters when corner loaded. www.audioadvic...
Sealed SB3000 Smaller rooms corner loaded. www.audioadvic...
Sealed SB4000 www.audioadvic...
Sealed SB16 www.audioadvic...
👉Ported SVS. These will have substantially more output and headroom than their sealed counterpart. (note slight port chuffing will exist when pushed hard and forced below tuning).
Ported PB2000 www.audioadvic... ?referral=ht-gurus
Ported PB3000 www.audioadvic...
Ported PB4000www.audioadvic...
Ported PB16 www.audioadvic...
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✅Monolith
12" Ported amzn.to/3NY91aS
15" Ported amzn.to/3DokueT
16" amzn.to/3q4NeWX
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👉✅👉✅Note.. Once you're at the $1500 dollar range you really need to consider GSG as at that price you will outperform all subs above.
The full Marty will outperform them all by a good margin and they have much more powerful subs than the full Marty. These are my go to subs in my Home Theater Designs. 90 percent of my rooms (over 100 a year) are using the GSG BTS with 21" drivers. I spec them as their price to performance is the best out there and I want to far exceed my clients expectations.
👉✅shop.gsgad.com...
Link to GSG subwoofer Kits. All kits are offered as a kit or can be built assembled and finished by GSG.
shop.gsgad.com...
Please use this order code when ordering anything from GSG so they know you saw it here! Thanks.
Code: Elitehomecinema

[@hometheatergurus]

✅For room plan layout service contact me @ [e-mail]

[@CoreMaster111]

I am designing an enclosure for my sub ( Alpine SWR-1542D ) and ideally mine is more suitable for sealed box but after playing around in WinISD. I made Roughly equal sized gross volume boxes for sealed and ported. Ported not only plays way lower, it is way louder and group delay is essentially identical which makes sealed sub even more pointless in my case. At 40hz I should have 14.5 ms of group delay with both boxes. At 60 hz ported is 8.5ms, ported 9ms. And at 20hz ported is 43.5ms and ported 35ms. Port velocity peaks at 22m/s, which is fine for flared round port.

[@mrq1701]

You didn't talk about the physical dampening of the cone that occurs in a sealed enclosure, but does not occur is a ported enclosure, at least not at the same level. Without servo control, the sealed enclosure will be more accurate and tighter. Changing EQ settings will not change this. There is no free lunch. You can't have the extra efficiency down low and not have a cost somewhere else.

[@MrBonger88]

It was a revelation for me when I set up my 2 ported subs properly, with the minidsp, using your guide.

[@hometheatergurus]

Setup is everything!

[@eliashabash7591]

I had the issue of ported subs being too large. The ones that i could make work didnt have the output i wanted I solved it with 2x Rythmik F18s Height width AND depth were all very reasonable and match my cabinet/ furniture At the same time has all the slam i want while sounding out of this world good and much cheaper than literally all the competitors in its class

[@michaelmaaba5463]

Would you say if a person doesn’t know how to EQ correctly and is new to home theater a sealed subwoofer would be easier to place and use? I’m debating getting a sealed Starke 15” due to their sale or… a 10-12” ported.

[@coachgordonpalmer]

I have 4 SVS PB3000's and had previously run this exact comparison. My results were more or less as you found. All subs running with no EQ in 4m x 8m room. Output was the same down to 35Hz and Sealed was 10Db down at 20 Hz and they crossed back at 15Hz with sealed 10Db higher at 13Hz One thing I would comment on is the (rate of) decay was improved in the Sealed mode below 30Hz and this is audible in my room. Not night and day but noticeable. So for me the trade off is the significant loss of headroom v the less boomy sound at the bottom end. My takeaway from this is I would ideally like to have (much) larger sealed subs if I could afford to upgrade.

[@hometheatergurus]

Yep, thats what is shown in the video. You have less output down low so less ringing in the modal range. If you want the ported to sound like the sealed simple EQ it the same.

[@Muddzdk]

Great video. I learned well from it, but I have some questions: 1) When choosing between Sonos Sub G3 (ported) and Sub Mini (sealed) is it correctly understood that the G3 will deliver a wider range and lower range of bass even at low volume, compared to the Sub Mini where I would have to crank up the volume to be able to hear a wider/lower ranges of bass? 2) If question 1) is correctly understood from my side, does that mean Sub G3 is actually more suitable in my concrete walled apartment when watching movies at night at lower volume, since it will preserve more of the low frequencies and thereby I don't have to raise to volume to feel the sub? 3) You mention that with proper EQ a ported sub can be balanced well enough to be suitable for lets say music, is that what TruePlay does for Sonos? Calibrating the sound for the room?

[@allah___maadarchod]

Answer of Q1 : Yes. Answer of Q2 : Yes Answer of Q3 : The manufacturers have almost solved the issue with technology and mostly you don't need to do anything from your side. However, if you want to achieve the truest (if that's a word) sound possible, which is impossible through speakers btw, you need to use a 10-band equlizer to get close to what the true sound actually was. But the consequence of using a 10-band equalizer is that you will always end up screwing something and you will constantly be worried at all the times about whether you're listening to the truest possible audio or not (personal experience). The solution to that is to let it go and buy a ported sub which doesn't let you play with the balance between the bass and treble by providing more than just one knob. Don't buy any subwoofer which lets you control bass and treble through separate knobs. Enjoy.

[@oncrx]

You need to get one of the SI 24 inch drivers to test out! I thought about getting one until I thought through getting a 300 lb sub up the stairs and was worried about the floor structure supporting 2-4 of them. lol

[@hometheatergurus]

OHH I want them but my two wall cubbies behind the screen aren't quite wide enough for the enclosures to fit. Not that I need any more output with the dual 21s. I just want them just because.

[@paulupton5557]

A marvellous video. I think the water analogy is excellent. Titanic will be a much more enjoyable movie experience following this advice. Well done.

[@hometheatergurus]

Thanks Paul. I was worried it wouldn't come across simple enough but I think that analogy worked.

[@paulupton5557]

@hometheatergurus The analogy worked very well, for me, at least 😀

[@kelvino5305]

This is correct, but Sealed still sounds better, because bass reflex is out of phase. So if you have a big sub like 15 inch then pls dont port it ok?

[@Aweegin]

Other than open plan living, at what point does a room stop being a 'small room'? I have a 16x15x8(h)ft room, I wouldn't consider it small. It's a commonly used phrase in many videos with no real definition, and it can be confusing. Your videos are very helpful though :)

[@hometheatergurus]

If you check out ep 11 on room modes it shows you how to use a room mode calculator. All of the modes exist in the modal region and you can see how the room size effects this region. As far as bass is concerned even a 18x28'x12 room is a small room as many of the frequencies don't fit and are modal. That's probably the best answer, seeing it for yourself as you play with room size.

[@Aweegin]

@@hometheatergurus Just watched it, brilliant! That's the first time any of that topic has made sense, thanks bud.

[@hometheatergurus]

@Aweegin Glad to help., I much prefer to help people understand "why" vs just because I said so... :)

[@kkprabuece]

What’s the distance for 20 & 0

[@damianhaber4890]

Thanks for this explanation as I had suggested to a friend that he should buy a ported subwoofer!

[@hometheatergurus]

Hopefully it came across well. I almost scrubbed it and redid it as there's always things I later think I should have added.

[@obico12]

Would love to hear about things like distortion. They say bigger drivers are “cleaner” and that you need certain size to “pressurize the room”. Once you achieve the frequency curve you need and the target spl which is enough for your listening levels, what else is there to consider? E.g. I maxed out my possibilities frequency response wise with my 2 pb1000-s and have a pretty flat response, however I’m sure there would be some benefit if I went from 10” to 15” drivers, but how to measure that difference?

[@shaolin95]

"Flat" response down to what frequency?

[@hometheatergurus]

Both were sorta covered in this video. You don't want a flat response BTW. Checkout the channel playlist called "sub issues". It'll cover pretty much all of your questions.

[@Bradimus1]

I've always preferred ported in the home, sealed in the car. But that's as much about the space I have to dedicate to the enclosure as anything. Really, a lot of bad examples of one or the other are really just a poorly designed and built enclosure basesld on the driver they picked. My preference for sealed is for the rolloff advantages and protection for going below the tuning frequency. But that doesn't matter typically in home where you can have a very large, low tuned enclosure and not worry about doubling the enclosure size. Better to have the output then. I did have 2 15" sealed in my Park Ave long ago and it was perfect. 😂

[@hometheatergurus]

I went through a phase long ago where I had a few 15s in my ride. Woke up one morning to the cops knocking on my door and found my truck outside, doors open and stripped of all the gear. That was the end of that. Moved on to home theater!! :)

[@finster78]

Awesome video. So for a quality 18” driver like the Stereo Integrity HST-18, would you recommend it being in a GSG BTS (or Evolution) sealed enclosure or a MartyCube (or Mini-Marty) ported enclosure?

[@hometheatergurus]

Thanks! I'd go ported for sure but I'm a home theater guy so I want that output headroom. The BTS subs are going to perform like a full marty as the size and tuning are similar. They're just made for behind a screen wall.

[@finster78]

So you’re saying one of the bts ported as opposed to one of the bts sealed.

[@hometheatergurus]

Correct. NOw the BTS sealed will still be what i'd call a heavy hitter but sealed vs ported will perform like shown in the video.

[@finster78]

Awesome thanks.

[@Espiritiv]

What do you think of Rythmic FV18 sealed subs? Was considering two of these instead of two SVS PB16s

[@hometheatergurus]

There's a list of recommended subs in the description although rhythmic has good subs.

[@boterhammetpindakaashagelslag]

Rythmik is better than SVS. Get yourself dual E15's or F18's. Set it to low damping and be amazed.

[@Oz-Jameson]

Good morning from Scotland, very interesting video regarding ported against sealed subwoofers, I have 2 x SVS SB16 subwoofers just now but one of my subwoofers has a problem with a driver, so my question is would I be better getting a ported? Subwoofer had a smaller Driver diameter, are buying another SB16, I cannot fit a bigger subwoofer into the cabinet, That was a great video was very interesting regards Oz

[@musaedalfraih4682]

Thank you for your effort and the quite useful video. I wish you had talked about the effect of multiple subs on low extension quality and performance in the case of sealed subs. And would have loved it if you had included passive driver/radiator sealed subs in the comparison. Or maybe a separate video about them coz I would really like to hear your knowledge about that kind of subwoofers.

[@hometheatergurus]

Thanks. We've had videos on multiple subs in depth, check out the video section. PR subs would be a good one as well, maybe in the future.

[@FOH3663]

A passive radiator sub is characterized the same as vented/ported, except without potential port noise. It rolls off at the same 24dB/octave as vented, ported. Whereas sealed alignment rolls off at 12dB/octave. - Sealed roll off higher but slower - Vented rool off deeper but faster Of course multiple subs achieve more headroom and output capability, each doubling of subs yields 6dB increase. However, another big advantage is smoothing of the freq response across a wider area of the room. Does that answer your questions, concerns?

[@PETROL_Ted78]

Hi, In my home theater (4x5x3.20m) I have a 7.4.4 setup. The 4 sealed subs are alligned with a Minidsp 2x4 HD (thanks for the tutorial😊) I have 2 Rel HT1205's in the front corners. And 2 Rel HT1003 in the back corners. With room gain the frequency goes down to 17hz. Couch shaking experience when I crank the volume up😅. And the bass is real tight too. I allways thought ported subs have less advantage of room gain. Is that right? In our living room and in my home theater I always prefer sealed subwoofers. They just sound better to me. And they are allot wife-friendlier ;-) Keep up the great videos. They have been a great help. Thanks. Grt Ted

[@hometheatergurus]

Hey Ted, Glad you used the videos to set up the subs. The room gain benefits of ported vs sealed is actually discussed in this video. Thanks for watching the channel!! 😀

[@jjchmiel78]

I am a firm believer the smaller the room the more likely you should go sealed. Years ago I had a PSA V1500 and PSA XS-30se I was working with to find what I liked better. Most content they sounded the same and I had to lower the levels of the ported V1500 sub for same SPL. Both activated room modes of rattling with the ported having more air movement when cranked. In stuff like the intro to Edge of Tomorrow, Pod scene in War of the Worlds, Barrel roll scene in Flight of the Phoenix, Server Room scene in Pulse, almost all of Blade Runner 2049 and The Incredible Hulk, that felt air movement from the port wasn't playing nice with the port and sub. With the sealed I felt more skin tickles, less head pressure and cleaner sound. Maybe chalk it up to lack of experience but in my small room and my tuning ability, sealed is just better

[@hometheatergurus]

yep that's what the video explains. You need to tune the subs to the desired target as the ported has too much output in room. Once brought down to the target of the sealed you have the same decay time at a given frequency but have substantially more headroom hence cleaner output. YOu also must ensure you don't defeat the HPF with ported as you'll end up with port noise. Sealed subs can work well especially in smaller rooms but will still lack the output of the comparable ported option and once tuned you have the fast decay of the sealed but of course not quite the extension.

[@doublet147]

When you have control & fine tuning over subs (like with dsp), you realize that "sealed for small rooms & ported for big" is a false rule. That thought might be true if you just plug & play it, because then you're just letting the room modes take over.

[@jjchmiel78]

@@doublet147 Even with DSP smaller rooms using sealed makes more sense. With room gain and more shallow roll off one can take advantage of the extension.

[@doublet147]

I understand why you'd say that. That's what everyday common sense would dictate (& I thought). However, it's actually not the case in practice (at least not according to the research). There are some interesting studies addressing this subject. They opened my eyes to aspects I wasn't aware of.

[@FOH3663]

​@@jjchmiel78 Agreed

[@brodelicious]

I have always wondered why I preferred the sound of sealed subs. I wouldn’t call it chuffing but I feel like I can hear a tonal difference at and below the tuning frequency of a ported sub. Is this a thing?

[@hometheatergurus]

If the HPF isn't set or is defeated yeah you can have issues like that, or a poorly designed sub with too high of port velocity. All of which are either setup or design issues. This video takes on the whole muddy/tight argument which is shown in the video.. setup issues.

[@taseti4803]

My question to you is-Can I mix 2 PB-16 subwoofers upfront and have 2 SB-16 subwoofers in the back of the room?

[@mboljar]

16 min of video to say ported subs are more efficient then sealed. But there is much more then beeing 3db louder at 40Hz. Personally I always prefer sealed design because : - smaller, nice package - more musical - goes lower then ported Also, RT60 decay shows how much is needed for 60db to decay. For home and studios you need to use t20 option (how much time it takes 20db to decay). It is still called RT60 or Reverb Time.

[@hometheatergurus]

Sounds like you skipped 14 minutes of it or you'd realize it explained why you feel that way and it's due to improper setup . It explains how a Sealed sounds tighter vs an improperly setup ported and explains why. Once setup properly that is not the case.

[@MrNorcal81]

Hmm.. I've had an SVS PB-1000 Pro for quite a while . It's got a 12" driver with a 325w amp. I was able to score a used SB-3000 for a great price some time ago with a 13" driver and an 800w amp. Usage is almost completely home theater. I've done numerous A-B comparisons between them. They are in an open living room around 12x18 with a right turn into the dining area but the actual AV area is around 12x13. I had talked to the SVS guys, sent them a rough sketch of the room and the consensus was that the SB-3000 might be a better choice. The subs can be switched out for each other in a front right corner (only place they can fit) and each has its own Audyssey calibration saved to its own Denon AVR preset Truthfully, there are times where I really can't tell the difference between them but there's just something about the SB-3000 that I just like. I'm curious to know what you think about this.

[@hometheatergurus]

Sealed subs are fine it's just important to understand how drivers behave in each alignment and how the act in room. The PB3000 would have a lot more headroom above tuning and therefore less distortion. That doesn't mean you need the ported but that's just how they behave.

[@Bork0r]

If you manage to get the same output response curve (using eq) when a-b ing sealed vs vented. Will they sound/feel the same, or is there a difference in the way sound is produced that give you a different sensation/experience? Basically, could you compensate for a typical sealed setups output performance vs a vented, by scaling up the amount of sealed subs?

[@hometheatergurus]

Yep, this is all actually covered in the video.

[@Bork0r]

@@hometheatergurus ok sorry. I watched the whole thing and you mentioned the stacking part. But i just wanted to confirm if i understood it correctly. Thanks for clarifying this!

[@hometheatergurus]

@@Bork0r yeah you can add more sealed to make up for the output decrease.

[@Bork0r]

@@hometheatergurus got it!

[@joelane4670]

Hey bud..(haha). Question.I have 2 sealed subs,(svs 1000 and klipsch down firing sub)not a great sub,but it serves its purpose.. One sub the klipsch is behind my sofa very close to our sitting position, and the SVS is about 10 feet away closer to the TV.. I guess what I’m trying to ask is, should I have the phase on the two subs different like 0, 180. Or should they be both at zero?..14-14-8 room. Thanks..j lane

[@jayc5695]

any advice for how to do a modal analysis on an irregular shaped room?

[@tuathadedanann195]

Just get transmission line instead.

[@warmfreeze]

why not just use both in the same system? in my experience the tighter bass from sealed subs are better for HEARD bass in movies and music and ported subs are better for FELT bass in movies..

[@hometheatergurus]

What you're hearing is actually covered in the video and is a setup issues.

[@tonydillinger2553]

I have a svs sb 3000, looking at get a rythmik fvx12, is it ok to mix match subs?

[@hometheatergurus]

You're fine mixing. You want the tuning of each to be at a similar frequency to make integration easier. Use ep 11 and 7 to help place and align them.

[@thepickyaudiophile]

Where on the spektrum do subs with passive radiators fall?

[@hometheatergurus]

They're in the middle. Extension like a sealed under tuning but can be tuned like a ported.

[@thepickyaudiophile]

@@hometheatergurus Thanks! Just heard some acoustics folks takling about ported subs causing phase cancelation issues when used in smaller rooms, why sealed subs tend to be better (though most of it was over my head and I don’t know at what size this might apply) 😀

[@hometheatergurus]

@@thepickyaudiophile you get a phase shift at tuning but all rooms are small as far as subs are concerned. Those guys have setup issues.

[@nathandaniels4823]

Man those overdubs were rough! But great info anyway; thanks for all the hard work! I’ve got two sealed UM18s in my room. I had thought about going Full Marty, but they already outperform everything else in my room that it would be a waste of time for me. Maybe when I get into a larger room!

[@hometheatergurus]

Overdubs? Glad you liked the info.

[@themafia3119]

Just get a ported. 👍

[@hometheatergurus]

Or a GSG Evo with the 24" SI BEAST!!!!!

[@bobbiebreese9377]

Hmmm... So if POorted Subs are so much better as you claim for Home Audio, why do JL Audio, Perlison and others only make Sealed Subs for their Home Products? JL Audio offers both Ported and Sealed in their Car audio offerings, but kept it stricky Sealed for Home Audio?? I prefer sealed and JL audio knows a little about Subwoofers, they picked Sealed for a reason.

[@hometheatergurus]

It doesn't say they're better. It explains the differences when it comes to headroom and how they behave in room.

[@TylerStout]

My FAVORITE is when "audiophile" youtubers claim that subwoofer X is slower than subwoofer Y and the big difference is that Y doesn't have as much low end output.

[@hometheatergurus]

yeah most don't understand what's really going on in their room and subs just get thrown in a room without being properly setup and tuned.

[@John-hl6er]

Worth noting that al THX certified speakers and subs are sealed.

[@John-hl6er]

Define speed. Sealed subs have higher passive damping due to the pressure in the cabinet. This means less overhang (all other things being equal). Less over hang means more control and less distortion. Speakers with a lot of overhang sound sloppy and slow. Now I’m not saying all ported and sealed subs have this characteristics, but it is certainly an inherent advantage of the sealed design, so it stands to reason that many people find they sound “faster”.

[@TylerStout]

@@John-hl6er that's not true. Monoprice sells both thx ported and thx sealed speakers and subwoofers. I'm sure I could find more examples

[@John-hl6er]

Ah that is fair. The THX article I was reading must have been old or mistaken.

[@grantgoodson2941]

😴😴😴

[@bingdong8571]

Not tight enough? Fine, let me throw some dirty socks in the port holes.

[@hometheatergurus]

Na.. Then we lose output and headroom. I'd rather have that plus tight as shown in the video.