Anyone try stuffing their ports?

I had B&W P6s with foam port plug that I used to good effect.

I loosely obstruct the ports of my Dynaudio Contour 1.3mkiis and OHM 100S3 Super Walsh 2s in my wife's sunroom, which is 12X12 with cathedral ceilings in that the speakers are relatively close to the rear walls and the bass can be too much otherwise in there.

My smaller less bass heavy Triangle Titus XS monitors run with ports unobstructed when in that room.

I do not obstruct the ports with the same speakers in my 12X12 office with conventional ceilings directly below the sunroom.

My point being that obstructing ports to various degrees can be an effective tool to help tune a speaker to room better if needed.

"f a speaker was designed to operate with a port, how can it be correct to plug the port, thereby making it a virtually sealed box? "

Plugging the port is an extreme case.

The effective approach is to restrict the air flow through the port to various degrees in order to reduce the energy level at the low frequencies the port is designed to enhance to various degrees as well, more or less like a specialized type of bass tone control.

Good speakers are designed to perform well in a variety of rooms however the room acoustics largely determine the results regarding the bass region to which ports are directed. Obstructing the port to some degree (as opposed to blocking it which is the extreme case) can be looked at as a way to fine tune the design of the speaker to best match the room. This does not defeat the design in any way if done right, it merely adapts it better to the room and teh listeners location within it. Its another (easy and practical) thing that can be done to better match the speaker to the listener's environment, along with tweaking speaker location and toe-in, room treatments, etc.

I would say it is ill advised for anybody to be spending money on upgrading equipment until they have done everything they can first to optimize the sound of what they have in the listener's environment. That is the key to good sound in most cases. Obstructing the port to various degrees is just one weapon in your arsenal if your speakers are ported.

Rather than follow some dogma about what is the right and wrong way to approach audiophile sound, try tweaks like this that are easy and cheap to implement and painlessly reversible as well if needed and let your own ears be the judge, which is all that matters.

Ckoffend,

Can you provide some guidelines regarding extending some of the straws relative to others and what effect on the sound to expect as more straws are extended?

I'm basically interested in guidelines for how to go about systematically tweaking the sound using this approach.

Thanks.

"Why would you want too?"

Because it is inexpensive, easy to experiment with and also easy to reverse/remove as desired.

If it does not help, forget about it. If it does....

"Changing a ported design to a sealed without understanding design or knowing specs on driver etc shows a miss understanding of loudspeaker design. "

It's redundant to say not understanding design shows a misunderstanding of design. Not much insight there....

My very limited understanding of speaker design will only get me so far. Plus, good design alone is not guaranteed to float my boat, so I have to trust my ears.

Just don't let me catch anybody who is against mucking with an expert out of the box design rolling their tubes........

Yes, I almost always obstruct the ports on my monitors even when using with a subwoofer.

I learned the trick when I owned B&W P6s which also came with foam port plugs.