Q: I have a '98 Cadillac Eldorado and plan on running two 12" Audiobahn speakers that handle 1,100 watts RMS. To power the system, I'll have two Arc Audio 1500DR amps (1,000 watts each at 2 ohms), one going to each speaker. Should I use a ported box or non-ported box? My Cadillac seems to hold in sound when I close the trunk, but once the trunk is closed I can hardly hear the bass outside the car. What should I do?Jondel Davis
A: OK, first let's look at how to design a bass system, since I can tell you're trying to choose between cabinets that have no effect on the situation you're describing. To many it seems to be a reverse process - first you pick the coolest sub you can find, then choose a cool cabinet configuration, and finally go for the type of bass you want to hear. That's totally backward from the correct approach since it forces the sub to try to operate in a non-optimum situation, trying to produce bass it wasn't designed to produce.
First, you need to consider the type of bass you want to produce. Then, select the cabinet style known to have those characteristics. Finally, match up a sub that fits the parameters of the cabinet. Sealed and ported cabinets are at the sound quality end of the spectrum, especially if your objective is to get it loud outside the car. For serious output, you'd want to sacrifice sound quality in favor of limited bandwidth and high output.
If you want generally musical bass, the sealed cabinet is the first choice. It's tight, predictable and forgiving in terms of mistakes in cabinet size. Next in line is the ported cabinet, with its ability to extend to deeper bass notes with higher efficiency. It accomplishes this by using a port to resonate in place of the speaker at certain frequencies. The tradeoff of a bit less sound quality in favor of deeper apparent bass is the advantage.
I think it's an advantage to not hear bass outside the car, especially if it's a car audio system rather than a public address system. If you want to make a community crusher, then you really need a high-gain cabinet that sacrifices all sound quality in favor of sheer output.