[taylor2]

We are building a simple two-way set of speakers for a physics project and we were wondering what are some of the pros and cons of having ported speakers??? Also, how much more complicated is it to build a ported speaker rather than a non-ported speaker?

[chrismercurio]

I'll bite.

Complicated? Well, you do have to cut/drill/route 2 more holes (1 per port)....so this is an increase in overall work for your physics project.

The pros and cons are directly related to whether you prefer the sound of ported or sealed alignments. There are some objective comparisons if you search here, google, or elsewhere.

[TomW16]

Generally a sealed speaker will be more forgiving of slight errors in the speaker design (e.g. speaker volume) than a ported speaker.  The port is generally sized to the speaker volume and woofer parameters.  Depending on the complexity of your physics project, a sealed speaker should provide a higher probability of success. 

The sonic tradeoffs of a sealed versus ported speaker is that a sealed speaker will generally begin to rolloff the low frequencies at a higher level (e.g. 50 Hz) but at a shallower rate.  A ported speaker if designed properly will extend flat to slightly lower frequency (e.g. 40 Hz) but will have a much steeper rolloff.

Good luck with the project.

Tom