[dayneger]

Does it matter where the speaker port is located, as long as it's geometrically equivalent and can breathe well?

I'm wondering if you can put your speakers closer to the wall if the port is out the front, top or sides, what impact this has on bass, sound stage and imaging, etc.

Obviously it matters for aesthetics, but I've not idea what it means in terms of speaker placement and sound quality.

[JackStraw]

As I understand it, ported speakers can exaggerate bass when the port is close to a wall. By this logic, rear ported speakers need to be out into the room a little. That being said, I've heard that bottom ported speakers do well up against walls. I suppose that a bottom port is ALWAYS near a boundary, the stand/shelf/floor. I suppose that the designers account for this in cabinet design.

[nathanm]

Get two friends and make them move your speakers around for you while you listen to what sounds best.  This will save you from getting up and down from your listening chair, thus preventing accidental exercise.  Or you could build an elaborate, hydraulically-controlled speaker moving robot.  This is what I have done.  Unfortunately visitors are more impressed by the robot than by the holographic image of the didgeridoo player at stage left.  Damn them.

I usually like mine far away from the back wall and spaced in awkward positions that interfere with foot traffic.  This placement has also been known to generate puzzled expressions from certain females.  But much like speaker cones, they just need to be broken in.

[dayneger]

I'm familiar with how my rear-ported speakers react (too close to the wall and they get boomy, totally shutting down the soundstaging), but not with how other orientations respond.

Soon I'll be making some speakers and am curious what would happen if I made them (smallish stand speakers) with the port firing forward instead of backward, or upwards or whatever.

Advantageous would be placements closer to the rear wall, but I'd like to know about this in general.