The ports come with sponge in them already.

Just had another session with them. Played some stuff with serious low octave content (modern hip hop/funk sort of thing) and have to take my comments above back a little at least. Bass is not as good as I have heard of the best of them, but really it is churlish to fault it except against the very best. Having said that I will be acclimatising to the speakers and they do seem to have run in a bit since I first got them (I am putting some watts into them with the listening distance which I suspect they may not have had in a while if at all).

It has had me quite captivated for three hours tonight, I forgot about changing out the Sony CD for the Parasound entirely. I'm not kidding the mid and top on these is quite something. If it was married with an equally impressive bass response you would pretty much have perfection. Room withstanding of course. But there are no flaws in the bass really, it is just two-small-driver-ported-bass, bass, if you know what I mean. Bear in mind I'm jaded and have heard too much . A civilian would be really impressed with the bass (and even hardened survivors wold be with the rest) I think. Overall they really are a step up on anything i have had before including the Celestion A2.

This is why I am thinking ultimately my own build, active, with full digital crossovers/eq is the optimal approach to get a speaker that sounds exactly how I personally want it to sound.

Only one way to find out. Expensive mistake if I am wrong though.