Sealed vs. Ported Speakers

The Sonus Faber Stradivari is WAY more than $20k, and it is ported. The $200k Wilson Alexandria speakers are ported, as are Audionote speakers, Classica Audio, and a host of others. There are plenty of sealed box speakers under $100 a pair.

It is not hard to design and build speakers that are either ported or sealed, so cost is irrelevant.

The only thing that I haven't seen mentioned is that as woofers are used over time, their spec do change. Getting port tuning correct is more critical than the spec's straying a bit for a sealed box. So Sealed boxes tend to stay sounding as designed longer than a ported box.
Tim

IMHO, in the simplest terms:

Ports can offer better value.
Sealed speakers can offer better performance.

I read an article a few years back that said ported speakers have more bass output but roll off quickly where a sealed enclosure goes down a bit lower (with a smoother rolloff) but has a bit less output.

Based on this information I wonder why more companies do not make sealed enclosure speakers (even if they are a bit less efficient) as it seems sealed enclosures would work in more rooms as well.

One other wrinkle:

There are variations on sealed boxes. Those designs which limit internal cabinet volume relative to maximum driver displacement (usually called "acoustic suspension" speakers) damp the driver's movement to a greater degree than those which use a larger volume box relative to max driver displacement (generally "infinite baffle" speakers).

Caveat: As far as I can tell, these terms are used somewhat imprecisely in audio writing, so you've got to be careful about written descriptions. The less damped infinite baffle designs generally sit somewhere between ported designs and acoustic suspension designs in regard to tight bass, but...

Not all ported designs are created equal, either. Some (Merlin and Ref 3a come to mind) sound (to my ear, anyway) like they're more highly damped than others. That makes it even harder to compare/contrast the two approaches.

In the end, I believe that generalizations are often of limited utility when trying to pin specific qualities back to broad design criteria like "ported" vs. "sealed" speakers.

Marty