Front porting small 2 way benefits are?

[Drjay]

I'm still loving Duane Brown's small 2 way design and am thinking of replacing my Brio Trio clone desktop speakers with his Dayton 4 design. The problem is that the speakers must be positioned at most 8 inches from the back wall. Based on my very limited understanding of the propogation of sound, front porting these speakers would give me about the same audible results as using rear ported speakers 8.5 inches further out from the wall. (The Dayton 4s are 8.5" deep) So, am I thinking correctly, and regardless, would the sound benefits in terms of keeping the bass, which is abundant with these speakers, controlled?

Best Holiday wishes,
Jay

[billfitzmaurice]

Front or rear, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. I don't see any reason for that 8" distance recommendation. For the distance from the port to the wall to be significant it would have to approach 1/4 wavelength within the port pass band. 8 inches is 1/4 wavelength around 400Hz, which is at least 2 octaves above any port pass band.

[fpitas]

If you rear port, you need about a port diameter to the wall if the port has a good flare (which it always should). Not sure what that 8" recommendation means, either.

[Drjay]

I did not do a very good job of explaining things in my original post. What I was trying to say is that, in my particular situation, on my desktop, the best location for the speakers, for the best use of desktop space is 8 inches or less away from the wall behind the desk. We hear all the time that it is best to place speakers away from walls and especially corners. I was thinking that with placement only eight inches from the wall, a speaker that produces fairly solid bass into the 60HZ range might benefit from front porting.
From what Bill says above though, it would make no audible difference. I'm wondering then, why does anyone build or manufacture front ported speakers?

Jay

[fpitas]

I can only guess the manufacturer is afraid people will push the speaker against the wall and defeat the port.

[billfitzmaurice]

We hear all the time that it is best to place speakers away from walls and especially corners.

We hear lots of things all the time that aren't necessarily true.

why does anyone build or manufacture front ported speakers?

When front ported they can be placed tight to a wall. But the main reason why is because that's what people are used to seeing.

[dynamo]

Front or rear, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

I disagree (with all due respect to Billfitzmaurice as he is more knowledgeable than I). Perhaps on paper the low frequencies should be omnidirectional, but there are other factors that change the perception of sound based on port location. Even though a port may be tuned to 40hz, there is potentially sound up to 1000hz coming out to some level. There are also varying levels of audible port noises (chuffing, turbulence, resonance, etc) that will be more or less audible depending on port location.

My subjective opinion - I like the sound of more speakers with front ports than rear, and I have never met a down firing port or side firing passive radiators I didn’t like.