Ported versus sealed speakers: is one type better?

bd24 is right but the result is that the ported design sounds as if it has more bass. Ported designs can be excellent such as Wilson's but the vast majority of them are colored. Designing ports is easy. It is just a math problem. I think where most designs fail is in implementation, cheap materials, resonant enclosures etc. 
I do not like any enclosure except for subwoofers. Open baffle speakers crossing over to subs at around 100 Hz work great. I use dipole ESLs
For subwoofers sealed is absolutely best. With signal processing and a very powerful amp you can make the driver do whatever you want. As long as the enclosure is inert you are in business. The best designs now are "balanced force." You put a driver in opposite sides of  sealed enclosure so that their vibrational forces cancel out. 
Infinite baffle design was mentioned. Bozak used Infinite baffle enclosures. This requires a large enclosure. Large enclosures are difficult to keep quiet. The bigger the board the more prone to vibration and resonance it is. Bozak used 3/4" plywood. The Bozak enclosure was a musical instrument. My father had a pair. With a Dynaco Stereo 70 they played very loud with rich chocolate flavored bass. They were colored as hell but to an 8 year old kid that system was the nuts.
In my own experience except for subs, the best enclosure is no enclosure. 

This is a really interesting thread, and because of my technical ignorance I don't have anything factual to add; but my own experience after having owned almost 20 pairs is that while I have enjoyed the sound of a good sealed box speaker, I think that in comparison to a good ported speaker, like the Spendor SP100, or my present Klipsch Epic CF- 4, the bass of the sealed enclosure doesn't  "breathe" in the same way. It sounds a little too tight, or maybe a little constipated. The way that the ported enclosure releases the bass notes into decay just seems more realistic to me.  
Having said that, I know that there are a lot of poor ported designs; and I've owned a couple that sounded hollow and boomy when they hit certain notes. I would also add that I have not heard the best of the current sealed designs like Magico and YG Acoustcs, so I can't speak for what they sound like.  

A lot of c**p being sprayed around here.
Drivers have a huge amount of specs and have preference for one or the other enclosures if built correctly.
To say to plug a port on a ported enclosure and believe the same driver is still in now an ideal sealed enclosure is BS, and then there’s the stuffing that comes into it.

In my first post, Nevile Thiel (rip) has said the correct thing.
Also he said to those that don’t know, to get a the same depth of lows that a ported box has from a sealed enclosure, size is greatly increased, and I’ll add, sealed also tighter/dryer and less colored when done right.

Cheers George

Ported, ,,all the way,, 

twoleftears-

Transmission line is best when properly implemented.

 Inclined to agree. First speakers I built were transmission lines using the 1980 Speaker Builder Design of Roger Sanders. For drivers I used the 10" woofers from my JBL L25. The bass was obviously, considerably, impressively better than when the same driver was in the ported JBL. More efficient, smoother, deeper. Not even close. 

The one advantage the JBL had was size. The L25 is a lot smaller and lighter. That too is a design consideration. But as long as all we care about is sound quality, transmission line all day long.