forgive me for not being able to explain this right but when designing the box do i need to face the port any certain way? i noticed that when i face the speakers towards the front of the car i feel the bass more as vs firing it towards the rear. is this because of the speakers, the port or both? to get this "feeling" where should i aim the speakers and ports? could i fire the speakers towards me and the port towards the rear of the car? or the other way around? i have a 07 magnum, would firing towards the glass produce anything soundwise?
I'll take a crack at this. You have two pressure waves that produce sound. One in front of the speaker and one behind the speaker. These two pressure/sound waves are at 180 degrees from each other. If the front and rear wave meet at the same time, the waves will neutralize each other and there will be almost no pressure.
With a port properly designed they will be timed so one frequency will be enhanced by both waves and none should be no destructive interference. So for the most pressure/sound both the port and the cone be aimed at the spot you wish to experience it. If you angle or deflect the back wave, it might step out of phase.
I wasn't present for box building week, but I did pick up this much of it.
The sound waves coming out the of port are not 180's out of phase all the time...it is a resonating air mass.
You can experiment but safest way is to have the driver and port on the same plane. Sometimes CRX style is louder but sub back port back sounds better.
there is no concrete way of doing things. Its all about the design
Just to clarify, The waves out of the port should be very close in phase, but the speaker will produce two phases, forward and reverse.
Generally it doesn't make much difference, in a typical daily driver install, what side of the box the port faces. The most important thing is that both the driver and port fire into the same general cavity of air. Example, both fire into the truck rather than port extended into cabin...or, both fire into the cargo area of a hatchback, e.g.
Some, whose goal is comp SPL, will end up building a handful of box versions and testing db level with each configuration. The loudest reading, while great for comp numbers, is usually not the best sound.
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Build the box so that it performs well in the worst case scenario and, in return, it will reward you at all times.