Sheep, MacManNM is correct. However, by technicality, it is true that a sealed box will respond lower than a ported counterpart. But here is the clincher: look at the response plots as shown by MacManNM. By the time the sealed enclosure has a higher amplitude at the lowest frequencies, it so far down in amplitude level that it is useless for all practical intents and purposes. It takes an exceptional driver in a sealed alignment to yield the same level of performance of a decent ported system, because you have to equalize the response and run the driver at much higher power levels/mechanical limitations in order to match the equivalent output of a lesser driver in a ported system. The only tangible benefit of a sealed system, as I see it, is space. You can equalize the small sealed box to any response desired, if the driver has the power/mechanical abilities to produce acceptable SPL vs. distortion at those frequencies. But this is waste of an exceptional driver. It would perform far better in a proper ported system. Some people claim transient response and group delay as reasons to avoid ported systems. But I challenge them to show that this difference is important via credible perceptual research. If you so desire, I can provide you with carefully altered files with different phase/group delay roll off characteristics that you can use in an ABX comparator program to sample without bias, in order to realize the triviality of the actual differences so far as these parameters are concerned.
-Chris
