Port chuffing remedies...............

I've always prefered sealed speakers myself, but they tend to need larger enclosures for good bass and I have limited realestate for a listening area.
I've tried in the past to either block off ports or stuff them with fiberfill or porous foam bungs to quell the port noise.
Tonight, I had an idea (oh oh) and thought about trying a rolled up cut strip of green ScotchBrite (pot scrubbers).
It's more rigid than foam and the pores are much bigger.
I figured that it should break up the turbulence, but not restrict the woofers from moving as much.
I have to say, that I think I might have something here.
I really like what it did to the bass of my KEF q10's.

Comments

  • Nightfall
    Nightfall Posts: 10,042
    The remedy is easy. Passive radiator. ;)
    afterburnt wrote: »
    They didn't speak a word of English, they were from South Carolina.

    Village Idiot of Club Polk
  • BlueFox
    BlueFox Posts: 15,251
    What the heck is ‘chuffing’?
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  • Nightfall
    Nightfall Posts: 10,042
    Port noise.
    afterburnt wrote: »
    They didn't speak a word of English, they were from South Carolina.

    Village Idiot of Club Polk
  • BlueFox
    BlueFox Posts: 15,251
    Okay. Thanks. It’s defined online as ‘a sound of or like the exhaust of a steam engine.’, and wasn’t sure how that applied to a stereo.
    Lumin X1 file player, Westminster Labs interconnect cable
    Sony XA-5400ES SACD; Pass XP-22 pre; X600.5 amps
    Magico S5 MKII Mcast Rose speakers; SPOD spikes

    Shunyata Triton v3/Typhon QR on source, Denali 2000 (2) on amps
    Shunyata Sigma XLR analog ICs, Sigma speaker cables
    Shunyata Sigma HC (2), Sigma Analog, Sigma Digital, Z Anaconda (3) power cables

    Mapleshade Samson V.3 four shelf solid maple rack, Micropoint brass footers
    Three 20 amp circuits.
  • Viking64
    Viking64 Posts: 6,646
    BlueFox wrote: »
    What the heck is ‘chuffing’?

    I don't know, so I'll guess it involves bleach, a glass tube, and a raccoon in his mid-30s.
  • BlueFox
    BlueFox Posts: 15,251
    edited October 2019
    Viking64 wrote: »
    BlueFox wrote: »
    What the heck is ‘chuffing’?

    I don't know, so I'll guess it involves bleach, a glass tube, and a raccoon in his mid-30s.

    That is Friday night for some members. :)
    Lumin X1 file player, Westminster Labs interconnect cable
    Sony XA-5400ES SACD; Pass XP-22 pre; X600.5 amps
    Magico S5 MKII Mcast Rose speakers; SPOD spikes

    Shunyata Triton v3/Typhon QR on source, Denali 2000 (2) on amps
    Shunyata Sigma XLR analog ICs, Sigma speaker cables
    Shunyata Sigma HC (2), Sigma Analog, Sigma Digital, Z Anaconda (3) power cables

    Mapleshade Samson V.3 four shelf solid maple rack, Micropoint brass footers
    Three 20 amp circuits.
  • lightman1
    lightman1 Posts: 10,776
    BlueFox wrote: »
    Viking64 wrote: »
    BlueFox wrote: »
    What the heck is ‘chuffing’?

    I don't know, so I'll guess it involves bleach, a glass tube, and a raccoon in his mid-30s.

    That is Friday night for some members. :)

    Yup. Thanks for noticing, Bud!
  • BlueFox
    BlueFox Posts: 15,251
    LOL. No problemo Russ.
    Lumin X1 file player, Westminster Labs interconnect cable
    Sony XA-5400ES SACD; Pass XP-22 pre; X600.5 amps
    Magico S5 MKII Mcast Rose speakers; SPOD spikes

    Shunyata Triton v3/Typhon QR on source, Denali 2000 (2) on amps
    Shunyata Sigma XLR analog ICs, Sigma speaker cables
    Shunyata Sigma HC (2), Sigma Analog, Sigma Digital, Z Anaconda (3) power cables

    Mapleshade Samson V.3 four shelf solid maple rack, Micropoint brass footers
    Three 20 amp circuits.
  • joecoulson
    joecoulson Posts: 4,943
    No Jim, it’s what you get when roller blading in hot weather.
  • westmassguy
    westmassguy Posts: 6,850
    You can also try relocating the port to the rear of the speaker.
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  • mhardy6647
    mhardy6647 Posts: 32,926
    edited October 2019
    Note that stuffing anything into the port will alter the tuning -- whether significantly or subtly, or for better or worse, depends on the exact circumstances, of course. I reckon the use of a Scotchbrite pad converts the enclosure alignment from bass reflex to an aperiodic vent (a la the Dynaco A-25 and its kin).

    What kind of loudspeakers are you having Portnoy's port noise issues with, @Polkaguy58 ? Most decent sized and carefully designed/built loudspeakers have minimal such issues (if any). IME only small cabinets tuned to fairly high enclosure resonances (e.g., the ported morphs of the Radio Shack/Optimus/RCA "Minimus 7" speakers, with tiny ports) exhibit such issues to an audible extent.

    Also -- not sure why @Polkaguy58 says that sealed loudspeakers "tend to need larger enclosures for good bass". Villchur and his colleagues developed the low Fs, high compliance woofers and acoustic suspension alignments precisely to permit the generation of deep, well-damped, extended, and flat bass from a small enclosure! The AR-3 (e.g.) is not a large loudspeaker, but it is capable of generating prodigious amounts of high-quality, deep bass if fed adequate power. It is true that an infinite baffle (which is a large sealed enclosure that does not use the alignment parameters of an acoustic suspension enclosure) generally requires a large enclosure to achieve a low f3, but the acoustic suspension alignments were developed precisely to miniaturize the enclosure needed for good bass -- albeit at the expense of sensitivity.

    Maybe it depends on what one considers large(r)...

  • Polkaguy58
    Polkaguy58 Posts: 352
    edited October 2019
    In my case, larger is anything over 9" wide and about a foot tall.
    I really have a small room and only sit about 6' away from my speakers.
    They're spaced about the same distance, so the smaller the cabinet, the farther the distance I can get between the tweeters.
    That was one of the good things about the SVS towers, they were skinny and had the tweeters mirror imaged.
    I actually got the ScotchBrite idea from watching a video about Dynaco A-25's.
    A lot of high end speakers actually come with foam port bungs, so I must not be the only one who's thought of messing with ports.
  • mhardy6647
    mhardy6647 Posts: 32,926
    Ever try a pair of AR-4x, AR-6, or AR-7? Or the Teledyne-era AR-18, for that matter?
    No ports, no chuffs, no errors. :)

    14484401676_7da4c581bc_c.jpgAR18 2 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

    So -- what loudspeaker did you treat with Scotchbrite pads to ameliorate chuffing?

  • They're KEF Q10's and perhaps the term chuffing is too dramatic, it's not so much the sound of turbulent air, as just a boominess emenating from the port.
    I guess my ears prefer non-ported speakers.
    I think the "port filter" more than likely acts as a gentle air brake, which to me, seems to tighten up the bass a bit.
  • skrol
    skrol Posts: 3,330
    Viking64 wrote: »
    BlueFox wrote: »
    What the heck is ‘chuffing’?

    I don't know, so I'll guess it involves bleach, a glass tube, and a raccoon in his mid-30s.

    I thought that was huffing
    Stan

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  • K_M
    K_M Posts: 1,627
    edited October 2019
    Polkaguy58 wrote: »
    They're KEF Q10's and perhaps the term chuffing is too dramatic, it's not so much the sound of turbulent air, as just a boominess emenating from the port.
    I guess my ears prefer non-ported speakers.
    I think the "port filter" more than likely acts as a gentle air brake, which to me, seems to tighten up the bass a bit.

    You are raising the box tuning is all.
    You either have your speakers too close to a wall or are getting issues from standing waves in the room

    Room dimensions?
    A competently designed vented box should not be "boomy based on just being a vented box.
    There are good and bad Sealed and vented box designs.

    The room probably plays more a factor in the bass than the type of implemented design does.