Wayne Parham Messages: 18791 Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)
There's no problem with the cabinet working as a Helmholtz resonator, whether the port fires into the trunk, the cabin or into freespace. But you're right that it does make an interesting situation. Both the cabin and the trunk are (lossy) sealed chambers of relatively small size so cabin gain boosts bass by approximately 12dB/oct. But the port generally only has frequencies below about 100Hz whereas the front of the loudspeaker is wideband, having both bass and treble.