Why can't the RE HC be in a sealed box?

[TheVanMan 0]

Hey Guys, I was wondering if anyone would know from experience why the HC's aren't put in sealed boxes that often. I seen on some forums people who want to put the HC's in a sealed enclosure, but then other people are like "no don't do that" but they don't give a reason at all.

I searched and searched but haven't been about to get a real solid answer. I ask RE and they said that they don't sound bad but they don't get as boomy. However isn't this true with most sealed vs. ported applications. So know I am even more confused about the situation.

I have 2 of the 15HC I bought from the sale if you guys are wondering. Spring break is coming in a couple of weeks so I plan to put them in my car then but I am still deciding on the what box I should put them in.

Edited February 25, 2004 by TheVanMan

[Chevy350TPI 12]

You can seal them.

1.5ft^3 - 2ft^3 is what I'd do if I went sealed.

My guess is that people always recommend going ported due to them wanting nothing but l... loudness, for lack of a better term.

Can get them to sound pretty clean ported, too.

- Steve

[sandt38 448]

The 12s lack bottom end terribly in a sealed enclosure.

The QTS being borderline and the FS being quite low lead me to believe the 15 should do OK sealed. Not spectacular, but not too bad. I prefer over a .45 for sealed applications, but .4 is generally a widely accepted cutoff. Without actually calculating the EBP, but estimating quickly seems to put it as a borderline sealed favored EBP.

I'd port it, just because of my experiances with the 12HC

[TheVanMan 0]

Well, I got the winISD file from the winISD forum and when I put it in, ia 15HC got EBP of 59.8. I don't know if it's right or not but that's what it is. Actually now that I have it modeled in a 2cuft box it seems there is very little bottom end even for a the 15. It has a frequency response of -6db at 30hz. I know that windISD is not the most accurate and it doesn't make up for cabin gain. It seems that they model way better in a ported box.

[Tirefryr 1,742]

Just for fun, I plugged this puppy into BBpro6.0 and here's the graph. Now BassBox allows you to input the acoustic measurement of your vehicles interior which I have done which is why the graph looks the way it does. I would say with cabin gain, the lowend would be quite impressive.

Orange line is a 3 cube sealed enclosure stuffed with polyfil. It has an in-car F3 of 5 Hz, and a QTC.508.

Yellow line is a vented enclosure 3.35 cubes tuned to 24.66Hz with an in-car F3 of 8.4Hz.

Not too bad on either enclosure if you ask me.

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

the ones that I have had experience with have all been ported, and great all around performers