BB4TB

All great points.

The bottom line seems to be that there's no single right or wrong answer - but lots of fun to be had trying different approaches and finding what works best for you.

Jeff Mackwood

This is a cool piece:
http://www.nhthifi.com/2004/products/product_detail.asp?ProductLineID=2&ProductID=47
It allows for the stereo subs scheme AND a 3rd sub for discrete LFE (looking at the I/O and controls, that is. I haven't read the manual).

Ellen,

If your crossover point (the point at which the sat begins to drop going down and your sub begins to drop going up) is at 80 Hz, the sat has to continue to play as the frequency drops below that point while your sub has to continue to play as the frequency rises above that same point.

IOW, the crossover filters are doing the attenuation in both cases. If your speakers can't play in the crossover region without their own natural drop off interfering in this process, then the crossover (or, blend from the sat to the sub) cannot be predictable.

This is why a sat should be flat (+/- 3dB) to as much as 1 octave below the crossover point
for the filter to be able to do it's job correctly.

This is also why a ported sat (which has a natural roll off of 24 dB/octave, and when the standard 12 dB/octave filter is applied has a new roll off of 36 dB/octave) doesn't blend well with a sub that has a 24 dB/octave slope applied by the low pass filter.

Sealed sats that are flat to 40 Hz are much less available than ported sats that are flat to 40 Hz.

Sorry, I'm not that adept at the short version.

Charlie...it appears that your system was way ahead of it's time...and a great looking one, at that!