When does something qualify as a front chamber?

I found some Adire Audio 12" Brahmas in excellent condition that somebody was selling on Craigslist for $125 for the pair. I bought them not really knowing too much, but after some research it appears that these are quite legendary. Very capable SPL and SQ, so I am excited at the prospect of being able to build some high-end subs. I am looking to build a ported enclosure with one of them for use in the home. Problem...I have very limited floor space and a wife who understandably does not want any more taken up.

I was looking into building an enclosure beneath my house. I have seen bandpass designs where just the port fires into the room, and I guess I could go that route. But I was really hoping to build a vented system. My question is, if I build a ported enclosure and both the woofer and port fired into a "chamber" that goes to the room, then is this just a bandpass? For instance let's assume the front baffle of the enclosure is 18x14 and fires into a "chamber" that is 18x14x6 such that the 14x6 dimension is a hole in my floor covered with a vent to make it look like a heating vent.

I am thinking all speakers fire into a "front enclosure" that is your room, but at some point that enclosure is so large that it does not affect design. But I don't know how large that area needs to be. It made me think of car audio...is a sealed sub in a car with a window partially rolled down now considered a bandpass enclosure to those outside the car?

Thanks
 
14" deep is a 1/4 wavelength resonator at 240 Hz. As the room screws up the frequency response anyway, I would not worry about it. Keep the depth of the front chamber as small as possible. After building the box, the port tuning frequency can come out a little lower than expected, so the port might need to be shortened.

It made me think of car audio...is a sealed sub in a car with a window partially rolled down now considered a bandpass enclosure to those outside the car?
Yes to some extent. A car is lossy so the 'port' resonance is damped.
 
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GM...not really wanting to get all that complex with it. Honestly just want to build a simple vented, but optimum box I want is about 9 cubic feet and there is no way that will fit in the room normally, thus I am trying to find ways to get the enclosure somewhere else like beneath my house.
The other consideration is that if I build a "permanent" location enclosure then I can't move it to get the best room location for the sound
 
If crossed low (80 -100 Hz) most subs will have little problems sound wise, you could test the best location by using the driver free-air (low power, without blocking vents).

Imho 9 cubic ft is way to big, 2-3 cubic ft (plus materials) sounds way more like it.
 
I put the driver info into WinIsd and it came up with a huge box. I thought that was too big also. I played around with it and 9 cubic ft produced a nice “virtual” speaker response. Originally WINISD had the box over 10 cubic ft.
I have heard of the “subwoofer crawl” method but never taking a driver in free air to test location. Will that really work? Won’t an enclosure change the best location and the way it sounds. Or is that just more a function of the room itself.
 
GM...not really wanting to get all that complex with it. Honestly just want to build a simple vented, but optimum box I want is about 9 cubic feet and there is no way that will fit in the room normally, thus I am trying to find ways to get the enclosure somewhere else like beneath my house.
The other consideration is that if I build a "permanent" location enclosure then I can't move it to get the best room location for the sound

OK, though while 9 ft^3 is about right for the TH, based on published specs it's ~ 4x too large for a basic vented alignment as Rademakers noted:

Vb = 20*Vas*Qts'^3.3 = ~62.45 L

Fb = 0.42*Fs*Qts'^-0.96 = 25.17 Hz

Note that an 'optimum' in room location is in one of its odd H,W,D harmonics [1, 3, 5, 7, etc.], which for max room gain will be in a corner or at least along the sound wall and/or the wall behind the listening position, which also should be at an odd harmonic:
room modes explained - Google Search

GM
 
I have heard of the “subwoofer crawl” method but never taking a driver in free air to test location. Will that really work? Won’t an enclosure change the best location and the way it sounds. Or is that just more a function of the room itself.

??? Immensely! The only time one uses an [OB] driver in a 'crawl' is when the 'sub' is OB and placed acoustically near the floor or close to the ceiling.

GM