Interesting....I've never seen a home stereo use a bandpass setup
Bose was the one who pioneered this technology so they could achieve the small sized mids and highs, while using smaller drivers to perform as though they where larger. It worked didn't it. Yeah I am a Bose fan, but how many other 20 year olds have their own bose Home theater system and tower speakers???
In terms of the "Bandpass" or "ported" applications here is a little on both.
In a bandpass enclosure, the front wave is restricted to a small area that is seald off, usually with plexiglass. By doing this it inhbits the front waves from interacting with the rear waves. The rear waves exit through 2-4 ports usually, that are tuned to the lower frequencies-usually 34Hz and down. Thus they sound quite "muddy", and "boomy" but that is due to their tuning. Being that the front and rear waves can't react with each other, the suspension of the woofer suffers, giving it a slower rebound, thus moving less air per cycle resulting in LOWER frequencies.
In a ported enclosure, the front and rear waves get to react with each other giving the woofer better "response" by means of its suspension. Yes, a ported box is designed with a "strong" frequency field, but it doesn't drop off quite like that of a bandpass. The bass is tighter, not like a sealed box, but enough so it doesn't make you tired of all the constant resnance of LOW frequencies.
Finally, yes, sealed boxes are the easiest by far to build and you can throw just about any type of sub into one. No calculations on how to put in a port, or trying to find enough room for the 20^ft (cubic feet) of space required for a bandpass! But they do cut out at a higher frequency than the others. Just look at my difference.
I have two MTX 8000 12" 4ohm subs powered with 450 watts RMS.
I can .....
A. Put in a sealed box, not over 2^ft each cause they start to muck up, and the bass starts to dorp off significantly after 40Hz.
Or
B. Construct a ported box with a volume of 2.5^ft each and have my port to the right specs and have clear bass right on down to the 26 Hz range. My subs are rated to go down to 23 Hz. That is making significant use of all that my subs have to offer!
So I'll let you decide. You purchased the subs, now do you want to use them or just have good looking woofers in your trunk? I would be glad to help you in any other way that I might and I would be very interested in having you drop me a line to let me know which way you decided to go.
Take it easy!
Jeff
