Here's a port made for when you don't think the port design is right, or you think you might want to second guess the port design:



It's is described as Aperiodic port or vent and it is marketed as a "Variovent"

It's stuffed with stuffing and you use more or less to taste.


best regards,
mike

Here's a descriptive page:

http://diyaudioprojects.com/Technical/Aperiodic/

Thanks for the links Mike.

mattplaysguitar


Does anyone else here think that the KRK Rockits really just sound like consumer speakers and don't really deserve the label of 'monitors'? Especially the 5's. VERY hyped low end. Then the bass on all of them sounds really disjointed and not smooth throughout the whole frequency response. A few people have mentioned them and I just really don't think they are a good monitor. The VXT's on the other hand... Wow. I thought the Yamaha's are much flatter and neutral sounding. The bass doesn't sound as 'good', but that's not what you want in a monitor. I just don't get all the hype over these Rockit's..

Its funny, but that is exactly why I bought the KRKs. Compared to others in its price range, it had the most natural sound, and had less trick circuitry to boost the low end like many others. But they are certainly not perfect. They lack warmth for instance. But the positives are they sound the same (to me) over a broad range of volumes and have enough definition that subtle changes in the mix can be heard. They are also very flexible in their use.

As someone else pointed out, I also do not use one single set of monitors, but listen to a mix on a variety of them, including headphones. Each type tell me something a little different about the mix. 

I have old Rokit 8's and absolutely love them. Of course they are tuned with ARC. Without, they were a bit bass heavy for me. They were left over from the other studio owner in my new place. I listened to them and loved them, so I kept them.

As for ported, no doubt in my mind there are probably some issues there. But, my A-7's have been so great to me (ARC'd as well) I have 3 sets of them and really love how they sound.

To be honest, with any sort of issue like this (even if you use ARC) there will be scientific proof that shows all the issues and errors. The thing I can't get my head around is, sometimes that stuff is not going to be as audible as people may make it sound. Sort of like using a compressor being a n00b....you'll only know you're using it when you hear it instead of knowing how to use it to where you don't actually hear it working at all.

I think this is where some people go astray and live for the science end. The thing with everything in my opinion is, we just about always need examples on what to listen for so we too can hear what the deal is. Just like the people that don't believe in ARC...if they can't hear it themselves, no one can blame them for their disbelief. I can't show proof on "what to listen for" other than if I said "ok, here's a mix without ARC, here's one with it..which sounds better and why is one better than the other?"

So I think the same may be the case here with ported monitors. Some may hear a difference, otheres may not and may need to know what to listen for really. I think that's the key to this whole field quite honestly. Those of you that may not think you are good engineers probably ARE if you had someone show you things or explain things to you to where you heard the examples to associate one thing to another. But I love my ported monitors. :)

-Danny

Danny, sometimes (at least for someone like me) the purpose of doing the science is so you know exactly what to listen for and/or whether it's worth worrying about.

For instance one of these days I'm going to build some  "bad" low pass filters in Reaktor largely just so that I can hear exaggerated examples of exactly what certain filter artifacts sound like, and at a frequency much lower than the 20kHz (or whatever) that some people claim they can hear the artifacts at.

drewfx1


Danny, sometimes (at least for someone like me) the purpose of doing the science is so you know exactly what to listen for and/or whether it's worth worrying about.

For instance one of these days I'm going to build some  "bad" low pass filters in Reaktor largely just so that I can hear exaggerated examples of exactly what certain filter artifacts sound like, and at a frequency much lower than the 20kHz (or whatever) that some people claim they can hear the artifacts at.

Right...totally understood. But in the case of Mike Senior, could it have been the room he tested in or something else that would make him take such a stand on ported monitors? Like...is there something he heard that maybe we can't? This is what I mean...the science is all well and good, but what happens when you can't hear what may be causing something to not give the right results? Wouldn't it also depend on how much this issue is making a difference for certain individuals in certain rooms doing certain styles of music?
 
Like for example Drew...say we really did massive experimenting on ARC and we find out it has so many flaws, it makes me wonder how I've gotten so lucky with it. LOL! Now, if those flaws or some scientific print out shows us the truth, yet I can't hear this truth and my mixes are sounding good, clients aren't complaining and everything seems to be in good shape over here, what did the science teach me if there's nothing I can hear?
 
And..what if the reason for me not hearing it is due to this particular problem not affecting me as greatly as it may someone else? See my point? If the science shows me things that are wrong yet I can't hear these things enough to where it's hurting me, how do I learn to hear them without being physically made aware as to what I should be listening for? Does that make sense at all? LOL!
 
Could we then apply that to ported monitors? If we can't hear what Mike Senior is telling us...which for sure he has some credibility to mention, and science shows us flaws with ported monitors that some of us may not hear, how or why would one worry about it? Can you see my point at all? This is where this stuff gets confusing to me to where I just throw my hands up in the air. Shouldn't we hear something wrong...or is it more you fix the something that is wrong that science provides and then you see if you can hear a difference for the better? If you're not having apparent problems to begin with and you just take the science as factual no matter what it pertains to, aren't we sort of searching for the sake of searching to where one could get totally involved with this to where it could actually deter them from getting anything done? LOL!!! These have always been my issues really. It's almost like people pry into this stuff "for the sake of".
 
I can totally see it if someone were having huge issues with ported monitors or any monitors really...or lack of room correction messing up their mixes etc. But if you don't have those problems and get good results, to me it seems a bit like science for the sake of science and just pretty much lab work, no?
 
-Danny

Danny Danzi

   
Like for example Drew...say we really did massive experimenting on ARC and we find out it has so many flaws, it makes me wonder how I've gotten so lucky with it. LOL! Now, if those flaws or some scientific print out shows us the truth, yet I can't hear this truth and my mixes are sounding good, clients aren't complaining and everything seems to be in good shape over here, what did the science teach me if there's nothing I can hear?
 
And..what if the reason for me not hearing it is due to this particular problem not affecting me as greatly as it may someone else? See my point? If the science shows me things that are wrong yet I can't hear these things enough to where it's hurting me, how do I learn to hear them without being physically made aware as to what I should be listening for? Does that make sense at all? LOL!
 
Could we then apply that to ported monitors? If we can't hear what Mike Senior is telling us...which for sure he has some credibility to mention, and science shows us flaws with ported monitors that some of us may not hear, how or why would one worry about it? Can you see my point at all? This is where this stuff gets confusing to me to where I just throw my hands up in the air. Shouldn't we hear something wrong...or is it more you fix the something that is wrong that science provides and then you see if you can hear a difference for the better? If you're not having apparent problems to begin with and you just take the science as factual no matter what it pertains to, aren't we sort of searching for the sake of searching to where one could get totally involved with this to where it could actually deter them from getting anything done? LOL!!! These have always been my issues really. It's almost like people pry into this stuff "for the sake of".
 
I can totally see it if someone were having huge issues with ported monitors or any monitors really...or lack of room correction messing up their mixes etc. But if you don't have those problems and get good results, to me it seems a bit like science for the sake of science and just pretty much lab work, no?
 
-Danny

I think agree almost completely here Danny. The only thing is that it's possible that we might not hear things just because we don't know what to listen for and thus aren't paying to them. And maybe those things matter. 

But for something like ARC (or studio monitors) we don't care so much about any imperfections themselves as whether those imperfections are covering up something we do care about. And if, as seems to be the case, you're getting excellent results that translate well using ARC on your monitors in your room, and no one else who listens to the results is pointing out any problems...



But I don't think it hurts anything to know where problems might exist, what their magnitude is, and in what specific situations they might make more or less of a difference. Or whether something is real or might have been imagined.

But that doesn't mean everyone has to spend their lives looking for (or worrying about) "problems" that might be meaningless in the real world anyway either.


And if I personally ever suggest that something you're doing is "wrong" based on science/theory, I'd encourage you to ask me to prove it to you with a real world listening test - and using "real" audio and not some special case test signal. I should either be able to back it up or else back down.

So,

Is the idea that the there's some guy who can hear problems with every ported speaker?

Or is the idea that there's some guy who has found a speaker with a port problem?

best,
mike

I don't know. I didn't do my reading homework.

But I'm curious about the quantitative magnitude of the problem and what specific cases it applies to.

If something is a "big" problem only in some very specific cases, then that would matter to me a lot more if I was designing something to be used in any of a wide variety of circumstances than if I'm just a single user using it in a single environment in a very specific set of circumstances.