Port tube; front or rear on bass refelex?

[dublin78]

I am about to start the build of a pair of floorstanding bassreflex loudspeakers, and I would like to know if there is any advantage in placing the reflex tube at the front as the speakers are likely to be placed only 8" from rear wall?
TIA

[Svante]

The big advantage with putting them on the back side is that any noise or pipe resonance sounds coming from the port becomes less audible. The big disadvantage is that you never know if someone will put it too close to the wall or in a bookshelf. This is particularly true for commercial speakers.

There is also a small shift in the frequency response if the sound from the port is delayed a bit, but this effect is typically small and not necessarily bad.

Below is a simulation where the contribution from the port is delayed by a distance of 0 (blue), 0.5 (green), and 1 meter (red).