Ported, Sealed or Transmission Line

Sealed speakers beat ported speakers in the areas of transient response. Because of this, you don't get the port resonances and noise that blurs the sound. And, because of their slower rolloff, produce more deep bass. They are also the easiest, and least costly to design and implement. There aren't really too many drawbacks to a sealed box.

Ported speakers are supposed to be up to 3 dB more sensitive than sealed speakers. In reality, it is not the case. They have a bump in the midbass which many people seem to like, and give the impression of having more bass than they do. While it is difficult to correctly implement a ported speaker correctly, it seems the public does not really care.

Transmission lines have excellent bass response. They have relatively loud deep bass, and can pack a real wallop. They combine the sharpness of attack and decay of a sealed speaker, with the impact of a ported speaker. In my experience they do not have less sensitivity than other designs.

Although I am not sure Sean meant to suggest that the straw trick for reducing port turbulence or "chuffing" is pure snake oil, I quite agree with him that you need to do some reading. There is much more to this question than you will conceivably get here, and you need a balanced view of your own.

That said, I am just as willing as anyone else to display my ignorance in public.

Any speaker design can result in a pleasing sound or not, depending on how it is implemented. Every design is built around tradeoffs--you win on the roundabouts and you lose on the swings, as the British say. Sealed enclosures have a relatively low resonant 'Q' but the actual resonant frequency will be higher than that of an equal-sized, properly ported box. Sealed box designs need more amplifier power, on the whole, because the cones have to work against the very stiff spring of the air trapped inside the box.

Knew that ? Great stuff. There's more. My supposedly humble opinion is that until you appreciate the tradeoffs involved in any audio design, you don't really appreciate the design.

The straws? cuts down on port noise I've read. Ported speakers are designed to increase bass response of small speakers...a way of outputing the rear wave as energy to combine with the direct sound. I'm not a big fan but do own some of these type speakers...they work as long as you don't over-drive. I'm a planer man myself...which is another set of problems!

Dave

Check your local library and they'll usually have a few books on the topic. Weems' (David) might be better for what you need to know: just to get some general insight. The tone of the book is still quite contemporary despite looking 10years outdated. A two week checkout should be enough. Dickason's book isn't bad and more technical in every way that Weems'. Its a good book to have too, but get some momentum through something simpler. The answer to your question is kind of hard to answer in a condensed straightforward manner.

Is one inherently better than the other?

That question's answer is (IMHO) no. But, they do have real differences and performance tradeoffs, and other tradeoffs.