L5 ported or sealed, dilemma really...?

Question

Alright I bought over ebay 2 10" L5 subwoofers. I ditched my single 10" Ported Alpine type-R because i wanted a dual subwoofer setup that hits really hard. However, I am worried that my enclosure wont bring the sub to "life" and my type r, because it was ported, may end up hitting better than my L5's.

My first set up was two 12" CVRs and I loved them so much(they hit great!). Now i miss them (type r is dissapointing) and Im hoping the 10" L5's will hit as hard as the CVRs did but yet be faster and more punchy because they are 10's.

Anyway my enclosure is sealed, and i am having to modify the mounting holes for square subs. However i might be willing to sell the L5's off and get CVX's instead if they would hit harder with more spl than my L5s in a sealed box. Im so clueless! -_-

And please dont give me SQ advice, I thought my CVRs were waaaaaay better than my Type R.........

Answer 1

Well if you want a tight punch from your subs then a larger sealed enclosure will work well for that.  If you are looking for SPL a large ported enclosure will be the way to go.  Since you are looking for something with both you are going to have to have something in the middle.  

The L5s will work well in a sealed enclosure and will be really loud as well.  That will give you the tight punch you are looking for.  

If you are more concerned with the loudness then I would suggest going ported.  With a ported enclosure you will get more output then sealed.  You loose a little bit of that tight bass depending on the tuning frequency and volume of the enclosure.  Ported enclosures tend to give you a boomier sound.  However, if the enclosure is properly tuned and designed it will still give you good tight bass.

You said that you went to the 10" model because you thought that the bass would be tighter.  The truth is that the size of the sub does not make it sound tighter.  You could have a 18" sub with a tighter sound then a 8" woofer.  The size is not what determines how "tight" the bass hits.  This is often confused because of how some manufacturer's make their subs.  Sometimes they use smaller motors on larger subs which is what causes the loss in tight bass.  So in a way a 10" "could" have tighter bass but it is not always true.

If you already have a sealed enclosure that fits Kicker's specs then see if you like the sound from it.  If that doesn't sound good to you then I suggest a ported enclosure built to the specs of your subs and designed to the sound of your liking.  

One last thing, Kicker does a good job of explaining the differences in sub enclosures in the manual that came with your subs.  You should read that and see the differences between all the types of enclosures.  That should help you make the final decision.

Good Luck!!!

Answer 2

What many people don't realize is that you can have the punchiness of a sealed box with the ability to hit and substain lows with a ported box.

The thing is that the ported box has to be designed specifically for the boxes that you have and the subs that you're using, there is an online calculator that I'll list as a source, you'll have to know a lot about your box and your subs, but I'm sure that you can figure out the box airspace and I'm sure that you can look up what you need to about the sub online.

When I did mine, I tuned it to 30 hz, tuning the box this low will give you nearly the same punch and SQ that a sealed box will, and give you the advantage in the lows that a ported box does.

Answer 3

port the L5s it will get more air and sound cleaner i have a ported L7 12" and 2 ported DB cross fire 12"s in my suburban all runnin off 1200 wts its sound clean and clearwhen i dont want loud base and blows out when i let it rip. subwoofers need a good airflow to work to their potential thats is why they dont sound as good in cramped trunks. i have had alot of subs and porting always improves performance

Answer 4

You're all over the place, huh? I just looked up your L5s ... they would perform great in a ported box, properly designed. Kicker manuals do "claim" that the 10" L5 would work well in a "sealed enclosure of any size" but that doesn't make much sense and the characteristics of the speaker don't support that claim. Since you appear to be going through speakers without any consideration of putting them in a box that is designed for them and then blaming the subs when they don't perform the same as other subs .... you should just keep on putting random subs in random boxes until by chance you like the sound.

If you want to put the effort into designing and building the proper box for the L5s ... ported is what you want. It would require 1.5 cuft per speaker though. That setup would give you good response down to ~32.5Hz where with a sealed box these speakers will only give you down to around 58Hz.

You should go back to the 12" CVRs if you liked them. I wouldn't use the L5s myself.

Answer 5

man a sealed box will work as long as they have some room to breath.