Side firing woofers

Well said Duke . . . I'd just like to add that at the frequencies covered by most side/rear/bottom mounted woofers, the wavelengths are long enough where the driver is essentialy a monopole (omnidirectional), so which direction they're "firing" per se is inconsequential . . .

But changing on which side the woofer or port is mounted (all else remaining equal) does usually change the proximity of the woofer to room boundries, and changes the distance between the right and left speakers a little bit as well. So for mirror-image pairs of speakers with woofers mounted on the sides, you typically get a difference in the bass response when you swap the left and right speakers with each other.

And there can also be a certain amount of unintended noise (surround or spider flexing, tinsel lead slap, grille resonance, port chuff, cabinet resonances, etc.) that can be much higher in frequency and quite directional, which will have different levels of audibility when the woofers are facing different directions.

The electrical phase of the woofer has nothing to do with its physical orientation. The net acoustic phase at the listening position is affected by the relative distance of the drivers from the listener at the crossover frequency. Unless the path length difference between woofer and midrange is greater that 1/4 wavelength at the crossover frequency, it's of negligible consequence to the acoustic phase. And if it is greater than 1/4 wavelength, then the designer has taken it into account when he designed the crossover.

Duke
dealer/manufacturer

I own a pair of speakers where the bass cabinets are separate from the mid/high (2 sep. cabinets) I can have the side woofer firing inward or outward. The bass seems much more intense when they are firing; not facing each other.

Depending on the romm, you can posistion the speakers to have the woofer firing in or out? I would assume that the bass drivers would be in phase with the mids to avoid cross over cancelation.