Front port vs Rear port

"Finally, nearly all ports have a resonance in the midrange region (imagine talking through a cardboard tube), so all else being equal we'd like that unwanted midrange energy to start out facing away from us and to travel as long as path as possible before reaching the ears" -Audiokinesis

Bingo ... !!!

Is that 2nd or 3rd harmonic Duke?

Such a phenom is also present with large paper cone woofers playing into the midband region, such a speaker is very much favored in Horn systems, along with a front firing port system. This is very much what panel owners notice and label as "sounding boxy" when listening to monopole box speakers.

A rear firing port is best not used in a size restricted room and if listening nearfield then a front firing port system is superior. Ultimately if you have the space a rear firing port IMO is superior to the front firing for sonics..

Regards,

Weseixas, I believe that the fundamental resonance of an open-on-both-ends tube will occur at the frequency where the tube's length is equal to one-half wavelenth. For a port 6" long, that would be about 1.1 kHz.

In my opinion a nearfield or small-room setup would be where well thought-out rear porting is most likely to be superior to front porting, for reasons mentioned in my earlier post.

Duke

In my opinion a nearfield or small-room setup would be where well thought-out rear porting is most likely to be superior to front porting, for reasons mentioned in my earlier post.
-Audiokinesis

Not really, when in the nearfield the reflected rear port output delay is very noticeable and is an issue, better to be front firing when doing nearfield speakers.

The audibility of coloration from a delayed signal gently peaks at about 2 milliseconds as I recall (based on an AES paper by by James M. Kates), corresponding to a path length difference of about 27 inches, but remember that the point of origin for the sound that emanates from the port is the back of the woofer cone, so that must be taken into account.

The significantly greater distance that must be travelled to reach the ears for the midrange output from a rear port in a nearfield setup (in comparison with the distance from a front port) means that it will probably be about 6 dB or so down in level compared to the output from a front port, and this will make a more significant difference than if the rear reflection distanace happens to correspond to 2 milliseconds. In addition, if the reflective surfaces around the rear port are not 100% reflective in the midrange, then that much less of its output will be reflected to the ears.

Uneven bass due to room modal behavior is generally worse in small rooms than in large ones, so the relative benefit from having the woofer and port interacting with the room modes differently (due to physical displacement in two or three dimensions) is theoretically greater in a small room.

Hence my position that well-though-out rear ports are likely to be superior in a nearfield or small-room setup.