Corona: The fact that you would desire to build a ported speaker for "hi-fi" use tells me more than any of your vague generalizations / thinly veiled advertisements that you call "responses" ever could.
Ported speakers are for applications where quantity is more important than quality or where compromises are necessary to obtain "reasonable" extension out of driver that is less than optimal to begin with. You can tell me that i'm "stuck in the stone age" and need to "catch up with technology", but i'm not the one that is trying to take out of phase information and make it arrive in phase.
Since we are still stuck working within the laws of physics, i prefer to do the best we can with what we've got and minimize the potential for damage. Installing a "blow hole" into a cabinet and allowing sound to leak out of it at any given frequency, phase and velocity does not make for anything less than a compromise from the start.
Audioengr: My comments about the length of the signal path in your speakers was meant to demonstrate that, even as careful as you've been with selecting active components, you are still FAR from hearing what a time and phase coherent signal sounds like. With as much care that went into designing the active components that you have and minimizing distortion within the signal chain, ALL of your signal is now fed to you via indirect "coupling" via capacitors. This is not to mention that, even though your speakers may have a relatively flat impedance and frequency response, much of the nuances of the signal are getting "devoured" by impedance compensation networks, etc.. If you doubt this, disable the Zobel's on the woofers and / or mids and then do a frequency sweep. If the output rises as frequency is increased ( as compared to "stock" ), the "extra" signal that your hearing / measuring was derived from power that was otherwise "lost" or "eaten up" by the Zobel(s). As such, it is only logical to deduce that lost output is the result of lost signal. Signal that you would otherwise hear / be able to put to use. Sean
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PS... I have speakers with no crossovers and speakers with 30 parts in the crossovers. Any time you put a "component" between the driver(S) and the amp, you loose something somewhere while trying to gain something somewhere else. As such, the usual "victims" in such an exchange are those things that are audible i.e. a reduction in harmonic structure, air, liquidity, natural presentation, etc... in order to "gain" in the areas of things that are "measurable" i.e. flatter frequency response, lower distortion, etc.. The end result is typically a speaker that measures well but sounds "lifeless", "sterile" and "power hungry". After all, all of those "passive parts" have to be energized to do their jobs. It would be silly to think that they worked for free, wouldn't it ? As to what "energizes" them, that would be the signal that you are feeding them from the amp. Signal that is now lost and can never be recovered. Sure, it can be further altered, but it can never be recovered.
