Rear Ported versus Non Rear Ported floor standing

The fact that a speaker is rear ported is immaterial. Most of the energy is coming out the front of the speaker. A port acts as a camber to lower the resonant frequency and increase the efficiency of the design.

In my 20 years of professional experience it depends on the room as well as the speaker how the sound will interact.

Also with many rear ported speakers you can try an old trick of stuffing things in the port to change the loading. Many companies include pre made bass plugs for this very purpose.

We used to use tubes from paper towels in a pinch which sometimes tightened the bass and dissappated bass bloat.

Really matching a speakers bass output with room size is much more relevant. If a speaker goes too low for a room to contain the bass the speaker can produce you are in for standing room city, which is worse than a little extra bass bloat by putting a rear ported speaker in a cabinet!

You should look for manufacturers that design for this issue. Some front ported and non-ported speakers will still sound awful if shoved into a corner or rear wall.

>>If a speaker goes too low for a room to contain the bass the speaker can produce you are in for standing room city, which is worse than a little extra bass bloat by putting a rear ported speaker in a cabinet!<<

This is a huge assumption and mostly hifi wives tale. Standing waves in the bass regions are mostly a function of diaphramic losses and in reality no playback room is big enough to properly handle the bottom octave.

In a very truncated nutshell, you can have great bass behavior, even down to 16Hz in a small room. Standing waves will likely be more of an issue in small rooms with bass in the 50Hz to 80 Hz range.

I recommend you bone up on this a little. There are a couple references that will help you understand better:

One is "Fundamentals of Acoustics", Third of Fourth Edition
Wiley press

The other is Harry F. Olson's book. It contains less math, fewer proofs and is totally solid; easier to understand if you do not have a strong math and physics background.

Does anybody have suggestions for front ported or non ported floor standing speakers for a L shaped room 11x14 & 10x10. thx for the suggestions

Of the three you listened to - what did you like best? What other speakers have you owned that you like? How important are aesthetics? Do you have an amp already or what will you use to drive them? There are a great many good speakers out there - each with strengths and weaknesses.