Its just the sound that I dont like. I love them for rock and metal that I listen too, but not for Reggae. They just seemed choked off to me. I know ported boxes can be peaky, but I have owned and heard a few that werent too bad. I dont want a completely flat response. Maybe what I want doesnt even exist. As I have more experience with the Icon, I know using some polyfill will help to get to where people want in a sealed box. I usually suggest going sealed first and playing with the size (or if the size cannot be changed, play with polyfill to give the sub a synthetic sense of a larger box, or internal slugs to reduce the internal size of the box) regardless of the sub before going ported. Personally I have our Icon proto 12 in a 1.1 sealed box with a little bit of polyfill. As a larger sealed box will up the efficiency a little and give a little livelier bottom end of the range, but too big and many drivers can get sloppy. Honestly, the choice here is a win win. Edit: The one thing I wonder about is your needs in output, because if you are coming from larger cone drivers which have been ported to a smaller cone driver sealed, you may love the sound but not the output.