Closed Cabinets

• Basic closed cabinets are designed solely to hold flush-mounted speakers and do little to enhance sound. Although some closed cabinets do add resonant frequency qualities, these cabinets are used primarily for public-address and background music systems, where audio enhancement is not of prime importance.
  
  

Vented Cabinets

• Vented speaker cabinets, sometimes called bass-reflex or infinite-baffle cabinets, are closed cabinets with a port, also called a vent. Ports are simply holes in the cabinet, which allow rear sound from the speaker to project. Tuned port cabinets use a port channel, located on the inside of the cabinet, which is tuned to enhance particular frequency response based on the interior cabinet design and port size. Vented cabinets are used to increase bass response and are used in many home-audio and live-sound applications.
  
  

Horn-loaded Cabinets

• Horn-loaded cabinets use a combination of ports to enhance low frequencies and an external-horn design. The horn allows sound to project further than flush-mount systems, provide directional projection and can also be tuned to favor certain mid and high-range frequencies. The concept is similar to speaking through a tube or cone. Horn-loaded cabinets are used primarily in live music, theater, stadium and arena situations, where long-throw, directional sound is needed.
  
  

Band-pass Cabinets

• Band-pass cabinets, also called folded horns, are used to reproduce low-end bass frequencies. Speakers are mounted internally with the voice coil pointed to the rear or side of the cabinet. A series of internal channels, leading to external ports, filters low-end, sub-bass sound through the front of the cabinet. Internal-horn configurations are sometimes used in tandem with external ports. Band-pass cabinets are used only to produce bass and are used in multicomponent speaker systems with other cabinet designs to produce a wide spectrum of audio frequencies.
  
  

Full-range Cabinets

• Full-range speaker cabinets use different speaker sizes and internal cabinet designs to produce the full audio spectrum. Typical full-range cabinets use a combination of two or more projection types, including horns, ports and internal folded band-pass horns. Full-range cabinets may use internal baffles to isolate frequencies.