Better>worse response

1st order dipole
2nd order Sealed/horn
4th order Ported
4th/6th order Bandpass
8th+ Bandpass

Ports use stored energy to enhance bass output. The air has mass,the method of the port stores energy til 'later'.

When designing bandpass subs,the whole idea of them is loudness,so quality suffers.Cone excursion on bandpass systems are lower than ported and sealed-but the fact is,in the time domain,once started in motion the sound doesnt stop quickly enough on a resonant system

Brian Davies made a comment that I thought was telling. He said that given two systems with the same driver, whatever EQ is provided to make the amplitude response equal will make the transient response equal too. So it's probably not an apples and apples thing - If a system is optimized so transient response is improved, it pays for it with less extension. If bass extension is made deeper, whether by acoustic device or electrical EQ, then the transient response will suffer by the same amount.

Wayne

This also makes sense,with the BP systems,with more EQ applied sound worse.. Personally i WOULD go sealed if i had enough Vd-but only when i had enough(ie not at the moment)

Regards
Mike.e