These are my personal observations and they are
subjective only (cover your ears,
@tuga )
because I possess neither the equipment nor knowledge to take meaningful measurements! I expect there will be many different viewpoints expressed here. All the speakers I've owned have been 2-way, to the best of my knowledge.
My first "proper" hi-fi speakers were Monitor Audio 14's - a sealed enclosure. I preferred them to all their ported contemporaries I heard at the time, both floorstanding and stand mounted, but as I was very new to audio and naive to boot I couldn't say if that was purely about the bass or the overall presentation. I enjoyed them very much though and thought they were nicely balanced for the rest of the system, and most importantly, were musically communicative. I did fil the bottom enclosure with sand though, which I though made an improvement. Whether that was down to increased stability on a carpeted floor, or because when it was empty the enclosure caused some resonances I don't know, but it did "tighten" the bass a little. They're still a warm and cuddly style of delivery though.
After those I went through a variety of designs of ported and 1/4-wave transmission line (which is a type of port, I suppose) and have now come back to a speaker with a sealed enclosure, albeit rather different in fundamental principle, being a hybrid ESL, so only the bass is "sealed". Although the additional "heft" of a ported design is sometimes useful, I found that the bass
quality can suffer, inasmuch as it presents as a little bit "soft" or loosely-defined, lacks some definition and can be a bit sluggish, affecting music that relies strongly on rhythm. I've also experimented with partially-covering the ports which was not successful - firstly it undoes the benefits of having the port in the first place, and secondly gives the sound a "closed-in", restrictive feel, as though one were listening with a head cold.
TL I felt was a more successful approach, retaining the precision, definition and drive of the lower registers while providing some useful augmentation. I think it's a shame that there are so few commercially-available examples of this type, maybe there are some bigger and fundamental flaws to the principle that I don't know about? I very much liked my Castle Harlechs, and the earlier PMCs that a few people on here seem to dislike - I'm talking about models such as the FB1, DB1 etc, not the "Twenty-x" stuff.
Now I'm back with a sealed enclosure but with much bigger drivers than I've ever had before. They are providing all the additional "grunt" that I could possibly want in my current room, plus bringing back that control in the bass that was previously missing. There's still work to do to treat the room's worst effects but I'm sure that once done, I will have the right balance of qualities - both extension and precision. Out of choice I wouldn't go back to a ported design now I don't think - I'm sure that it's possible to get some great results with the right design, but I am happy where I am now.