# Pairing ported with sealed?



## Saturn94 (Jun 8, 2013)

I currently have a ported sub, an SVS 16-46PC+, and am waiting for its replacement, a PSA Triax (sealed design). Mostly out of curiosity, I'm wondering if i can keep my SVS in the system as a second sub to smooth room response. If not, it's no big deal since I get a good response from the current front left corner location (this is where the Triax will be placed).

I've read that mixing ported and sealed subs is a bad idea due to phase issues. But then I've read where some have successfully combined sealed and ported.

How do you sucessfully mix sealed and ported?


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## steve nn (Jul 23, 2006)

Hey sat. Since you have them both on hand, glad you’re not buying to mix. Plot graph, plot graph, plot graph in different locations, utilize your new dsp in short. lddude:








:sweat:


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## hjones4841 (Jan 21, 2009)

You are correct that there are many who believe it is a bad idea. But, Dr. Hsu of Hsu Research said that a ported sub can be made to sound great if it is designed properly.

As others will say, try it. Nothing to lose.


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## Saturn94 (Jun 8, 2013)

steve nn said:


> Hey sat. Since you have them both on hand, glad you’re not buying to mix. Plot graph, plot graph, plot graph in different locations, utilize your new dsp in short. lddude:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yep, the Triax is meant to outright replace the SVS. But I figured since I will have both on hand I might do some experimenting to see what happens; at a minimum it should be educational. I was hoping someone might post some tips on combining them so I have some idea what to do.

Btw, I put off buying the miniDSP until I see what the Triax is going to do in my room.



hjones4841 said:


> You are correct that there are many who believe it is a bad idea. But, Dr. Hsu of Hsu Research said that a ported sub can be made to sound great if it is designed properly.
> 
> As others will say, try it. Nothing to lose.


I've had my 16-46PC+ for over 10 years and have really enjoyed it for both movies and music. My only issue is every once in a great while it will bottom out when watching a movie with very loud and low LFE.

I finally decided this year it was time for an upgrade. Initially I was only looking for something that would give me just a bit of extra headroom to address the bottoming out issue (I tried to find another 16-46 within a reasonable driving distance but had no luck). But when we got news at work we would be getting a bonus this year, I decided to go all out and ordered the Triax.

Since I'll have both subs on hand, I figured I would do a bit of experimenting. Hopefully someone who has integrated a ported sub with a sealed sub will chime in and offer some tips.


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## theJman (Mar 3, 2012)

Trying to integrate and tune disparate subwoofer styles is not for the faint of heart, and can often become an exercise in futility. It's not impossible, of course, but it's not terribly easy either. Throw in the fact they're from different manufacturers and you can assume the difficulty factor will get a little higher.

Give it a shot - you certainly have nothing to lose - but don't be surprised if you end up with just the Triax running...


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## steve nn (Jul 23, 2006)

^^^+1 I have done it with what's on hand a few times with mixed and complicated results. A few references I have kept is from Ed Mullen and Bill Fitz a speaker designer regarding the matter. I take that back.. I have lost Ed's quote and will have to ad it back in latter. Anyway I know your just playing sat and just checking things out. 

Bill Fitz,
It makes about as much engineering sense as putting a snow tire on one wheel of your car, a rain tire on another, a summer tire on the third and a racing slick on the fourth. The intent would be to have good performance in all road conditions, the result would be bad performance in any.

EDIT> Ed Mullen
Unless you want to run the PB13-Ultra in sealed mode, quad SB13-Ultra would be the best choice. The PB13U (in vented mode) and SB13U have dissimilar frequency and phase responses and may not integrate optimally in-room. Even with the PB13U in sealed mode, it would not have an identical phase response as the SB13U (but it would certainly be closer than vented mode). Ideally though, quad SB13U would be optimal.


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## Saturn94 (Jun 8, 2013)

theJman said:


> Trying to integrate and tune disparate subwoofer styles is not for the faint of heart, and can often become an exercise in futility. It's not impossible, of course, but it's not terribly easy either. Throw in the fact they're from different manufacturers and you can assume the difficulty factor will get a little higher.
> 
> Give it a shot - you certainly have nothing to lose - but don't be surprised if you end up with just the Triax running...


Yep, I fully expect the Triax will end up flying solo. :flex:



steve nn said:


> ^^^+1 I have done it with what's on hand a few times with mixed and complicated results. A few references I have kept is from Ed Mullen and Bill Fitz a speaker designer regarding the matter. I take that back.. I have lost Ed's quote and will have to ad it back in latter. Anyway I know your just playing sat and just checking things out.
> 
> Bill Fitz,
> It makes about as much engineering sense as putting a snow tire on one wheel of your car, a rain tire on another, a summer tire on the third and a racing slick on the fourth. The intent would be to have good performance in all road conditions, the result would be bad performance in any.
> ...


Thanks for the quotes.


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## Archaea (Jun 5, 2011)

one of the options near field might work well --- a 16hz tune on the SVS is a nice low tune to integrate with. 

It's not like he's trying to mix a 35hz port tuned 8" ported polk sub with a set of sealed subs. I agree you may end up just running one set or the other - but can't hurt to play around a bit to figure out for sure.


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## KelvinS1965 (Feb 6, 2011)

I think that if you have the time, spare sub and the inclination then no harm to be done with trying it out. Only last weekend I moved a smaller sub from my second room into my main system. I know from measuring that the MPL suffers a null covering quite a wide range centred about 35Hz. I experimented with REW room sim to see where a second sub might work best, then played some more to see how it should work given the limited places I have available.

Now I'm planing on building a pair of matching 15" sealed subs, but adding this second 10" sealed sub to my main 12" ported sub has certainly improved my response and the overall sound. If I wasn't in a position to start building my own subs, I could certainly live with this set up even if in theory it shouldn't work. 

I just set the two sub gain levels individually so the SPL is the same using test tones from the amp. The smaller sub is half the distance away from the MPL, so needs less gain anyway. The only issue is that I can't alter the delay to the second sub. I then ran my Antimode set up on the pair and though I haven't measured the response yet (it's a temporary set up after all) it certainly sounds much smoother and I can move around the room and not find excessive bass in a certain (non MPL) position that I used to suffer, which is useful as visitors might sit there and the bass was a bit peaky with a single sub.

I'm sure my set up will be even better with two properly matched subs, but my little experiment seems to have worked out very well. However part of this success is down to using REW room sim first (and that my room is a simple shape which makes the sim pretty accurate).


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## Saturn94 (Jun 8, 2013)

KelvinS1965 said:


> I think that if you have the time, spare sub and the inclination then no harm to be done with trying it out. Only last weekend I moved a smaller sub from my second room into my main system. I know from measuring that the MPL suffers a null covering quite a wide range centred about 35Hz. I experimented with REW room sim to see where a second sub might work best, then played some more to see how it should work given the limited places I have available.
> 
> Now I'm planing on building a pair of matching 15" sealed subs, but adding this second 10" sealed sub to my main 12" ported sub has certainly improved my response and the overall sound. If I wasn't in a position to start building my own subs, I could certainly live with this set up even if in theory it shouldn't work.
> 
> ...


Thanks for sharing your experience. 

Looks like the Triax should start shipping late next week. :woohoo:


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## Champster (Mar 30, 2014)

Interesting thread. I'm toying with the same idea myself. I loved the analogy on tires!


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## BeeMan458 (Nov 25, 2012)

When I was young, along with my friends, we jumped off of roofs. I'm older and wiser, I no longer jump off roofs.

Lately, we purchased a pair of matching subwoofers and an XT32 equipped AVR w/SubEQ HT. After the XT32/SubEQ HT software was run, I fired up REW for a bit of measuring and tweaking. Done deal.

Just saying, like I did as a youngster, I no longer find need to jump off roofs.


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## BeeMan458 (Nov 25, 2012)

Saturn94 said:


> Yep, I fully expect the Triax will end up flying solo. :flex:


I'm glad I went with the price point below the Triax subwoofer line. Our pair was about $2,600.00 USD vs $3,000.00 USD for a single Triax. One is such a lonely number and we have two subwoofers to keep each other company.

The pair I wanted was a pair of JTR Captivator S2s but they were way outside our budget and the pair we did get are more than capable of providing all the rumble and roll our room needs to keep it interesting.

The point, if I had a single Triax subwoofer, I'd being doing everything in our financial power to find it a mate.

The two subs we have will easily outperform a single Triax @ 12.5Hz but the single Triax, with authority, digs deeper and by comparison, two Triax subwoofers, enviably, will get the owner solidly into the single digits. The best we can do is get down to a solid 11Hz. It takes a lot of subwoofage to break the 10Hz barrier with authority and in style, two Triax subwoofers can easily do that.

Janis Joplin: 




...:devil:


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## Bear123 (Dec 31, 2013)

Perhaps this will be relevant to the op. I think my results may be a best case scenario due to sort of perfect storm type situation. I purchased an XS30, which is a 15" dual opposed sealed design 725/1450Watts. Placed in the optimal location for a single sub in my room, I ended up with a bad null at 50 Hz that could not be fixed with phase/distance or minor position tweaking. Just for the hell of it, I placed my old sub, a wimpy little 100W ported 10" Polk PSW110, nearfield between my sectional and the wall. It actually not only filled the null, but caused a peak that I had to eq down. Placing it near field much closer than my main sub enabled me to keep the gain a bit lower, even though it is certainly vastly outclassed. Here are my graphs so you can judge for yourself whether this was beneficial or not. I do plan on replacing the Polk at some point in the coming year with a more appropriate sealed sub. The last graph is with my two 5' french door openings closed in my room, which flattens out the bottom end. I can make this graph much smoother with a cut at 25 Hz and 12 Hz, but who the in the world wants to reduce LFE?


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## Basshead81 (Apr 9, 2013)

^While your graph looks pretty good lets see some spectogram and waterfall plots. I can about gurantee the psw110 is adding a lot of thd and ringing degrading sound quality.


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## Bear123 (Dec 31, 2013)

I think I have finally come up with the perfect solution for my dilemna: attempting to find a good sub to match up with my XS30, not for output so much as to help smooth my FR across the entire spectrum, not just 40Hz up.

The problem is I have a pretty small space of about 15", which really limits my options. Even a single 12" DIY comes in at 16.25" with a flat pack.

Today, a light bulb went off: Reaction Audio BPS212. Dual opposed 12", cabinet width 15"!!! Their initial discontinued offering is $329 shipped! and the new upgraded version is $499 shipped. Very likely to walk on anything I could build since it has dual drivers. I don't think I could beat the output for the price even building it myself, and the size matches even better. Problem solved. Now for wife approval....likely to be a month or so due to many recent expenses. Excited I finally stumbled across this option though.


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## Tom V. (Jul 12, 2012)

Bear123 said:


> I think I have finally come up with the perfect solution for my dilemna: attempting to find a good sub to match up with my XS30, not for output so much as to help smooth my FR across the entire spectrum, not just 40Hz up.
> 
> The problem is I have a pretty small space of about 15", which really limits my options. Even a single 12" DIY comes in at 16.25" with a flat pack.
> 
> Today, a light bulb went off: Reaction Audio BPS212. Dual opposed 12", cabinet width 15"!!! Their initial discontinued offering is $329 shipped! and the new upgraded version is $499 shipped. Very likely to walk on anything I could build since it has dual drivers. I don't think I could beat the output for the price even building it myself, and the size matches even better. Problem solved. Now for wife approval....likely to be a month or so due to many recent expenses. Excited I finally stumbled across this option though.


 Using a off the shelf yung amp from parts express I'd try to find some manufacturer measurements on this if you can. You are probably looking at a FR like the legand... steep electrical around 20-25hz. Phase shift is going to be very different from the XS30 = major cancellation possibilities down low. Never hurts to experiment of course.

Tom V.
Power Sound Audio


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## Bear123 (Dec 31, 2013)

Back to the drawing board. :scratch: Looks like I may wait and match things up.


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## The mad Scientist (Mar 9, 2020)

steve nn said:


> ^^^+1 I have done it with what's on hand a few times with mixed and complicated results. A few references I have kept is from Ed Mullen and Bill Fitz a speaker designer regarding the matter. I take that back.. I have lost Ed's quote and will have to ad it back in latter. Anyway I know your just playing sat and just checking things out.
> 
> Bill Fitz,
> It makes about as much engineering sense as putting a snow tire on one wheel of your car, a rain tire on another, a summer tire on the third and a racing slick on the fourth. The intent would be to have good performance in all road conditions, the result would be bad performance in any.
> ...





steve nn said:


> ^^^+1 I have done it with what's on hand a few times with mixed and complicated results. A few references I have kept is from Ed Mullen and Bill Fitz a speaker designer regarding the matter. I take that back.. I have lost Ed's quote and will have to ad it back in latter. Anyway I know your just playing sat and just checking things out.
> 
> Bill Fitz,
> It makes about as much engineering sense as putting a snow tire on one wheel of your car, a rain tire on another, a summer tire on the third and a racing slick on the fourth. The intent would be to have good performance in all road conditions, the result would be bad performance in any.
> ...


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## The mad Scientist (Mar 9, 2020)

People we are not talking about tires and weather conditions here but sound waves and sound waves behave totally diferent that snow,rain,mud,race tires?. Soundwaves, you have them or you dont as simple as that. When combining seal and ported you just need not to exceed one over the other as seal subs will be more of a tight bass respose and ported more on the loose end if you do all your bass eq adjustment right and crossover LFE and gain adjustments ,you can have the best of both worlds. Just need to experiment in room positioning of the subs its all. But it can be done . I have 2 12 inch slot vented in the front away from the corners close to the mains and one huge seal with dual 10 inch in a push pull configuration one sub faces in and the other out and are wired out of phase and the bass output in room its balance and powerfull with plenty of headroom. But you need to know what your doing cause alot of people think you need to hear the sub and the idea is the opposite. You want a well balance sound in the specific room you have your gear. Not take a sub crank the gain and max everiything and throw it in a corner and expect it to work well.


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

Sealed is not tighter... That’s a wives tale that’s not been valid for a long time. Unless you’re using a ported sub with high Q, and a poor driver and it’s not integrated with the mains very well. Like subs from the early 2000’s and before. Or diy with the poorly chosen components.
Have you verified your installation with rew?

Btw, I don’t know what exactly your subs are, but you do realize you quoted a brilliant speaker designer and Ed Mullen of SVS?


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