Front port vs Rear port

Viridian that is one reason the other reason is for room coupling, giving you a better bass performance vs front ports..

Regards,

Your electronics dictates some of this 2 , if running tubes for eg. in a small room you will want to stay away from ported full bandwidth speakers where the lack of bass control from the amplifier will make the speaker interact badly with the room.

Nothing to do with the speaker...

Regards,

"Finally, nearly all ports have a resonance in the midrange region (imagine talking through a cardboard tube), so all else being equal we'd like that unwanted midrange energy to start out facing away from us and to travel as long as path as possible before reaching the ears" -Audiokinesis

Bingo ... !!!

Is that 2nd or 3rd harmonic Duke?

Such a phenom is also present with large paper cone woofers playing into the midband region, such a speaker is very much favored in Horn systems, along with a front firing port system. This is very much what panel owners notice and label as "sounding boxy" when listening to monopole box speakers.

A rear firing port is best not used in a size restricted room and if listening nearfield then a front firing port system is superior. Ultimately if you have the space a rear firing port IMO is superior to the front firing for sonics..

Regards,

In my opinion a nearfield or small-room setup would be where well thought-out rear porting is most likely to be superior to front porting, for reasons mentioned in my earlier post.
-Audiokinesis

Not really, when in the nearfield the reflected rear port output delay is very noticeable and is an issue, better to be front firing when doing nearfield speakers.