brianca,

Give the 950 some time to be fair... I found the 950 to be slightly harsh at first myself (very critically speaking), but it's really changed since then (I got mine in the first week of shipping).

I no longer find it nearly as harsh now. Now I won't call it perfect or course, but I wouldn't use the word harsh at all now, like I did at first.

I'm going to try a diff. amp to hear the diff., since that has an effect of course too.

My current amp is the digital 200W x 2 Audiosource AMP 7t.

Also...

Don't think only bookshelf speakers are better off w/ the bass cut off below 80Hz.

Those Energy's of yours would be better off crossed over @ 80Hz than run full range (which they aren't), so the double bass shouldn't be an issue for you either.

Those dual 6 1/2" woofers are producing everything in the midrange up to the tweeter which is x'ed over about ...what... probably ~2500Hz?

NOT having to play the massive tones of 80Hz and below will very much open up the sound of those woofers even more than they are now.

And you won't be sending those drivers tones lower than the 30hz that they can't do at all -not that those Energy's are actually flat to below 30Hz like you think they are, but that's not the point.

And you'll gain more headroom from your main speaker's amps by not having to play those lowest of tones.

Many good things to be had by using that 80Hz analog x-over in the 950.

I cross my Newform Research 645's over @ 80Hz even though they actually can play flat to ~35Hz without any 'room boost' -which they don't get any of, because they're correctly set up ~6 feet away from any walls (like your Energy's should be to sound their best -if you have the space).

These speakers use dual 6 1/2" Scan-Speak 8545 carbonfiber/paper woofers in a ported cabinet, so in that respect they're similar to your Energy's drivers in that they play much of the midrange while also having to play the full bass range if set to 'Large'.

They're x-ed over lower than your Energy's though they're in an even better position to play the bass range.

Also, this driver has a freq. resonance of ~30Hz. This is tremendously low for a 6 1/2" driver and almost no 6 1/2" in production can match it.

It's the midrange driver used in the $20K Wilson Audio WATT/puppy, and used by tons of VERY high end companies.

My point (and there is one -heh) is NOT to brag or anything (sorry if it sounds that way), but to explain that even while my Newform's are more suited to play very deep bass compared to your Energy's, since the woofers have to play higher freqs. (like yours), they're better off w/ the sub handling the very heavy non-directional bass tones below 80Hz as are your Energy's.

Only tower speakers that use a "sepp. midrange driver" (which neither of our speakers do) are not benefitted by getting the 'below 80Hz' bass out of them.

And even then, there's no reason NOT to have your subwoofer handle the below 80Hz tones.

They're non-directional, and a larger subwoofer driver is better off playing those 80Hz and lower tones than your 6 1/2's, and you get less distortion from the subs at the same volume due to it being corner loaded boosting it's overall output -an effect that works great for subs, but like crap w/ the directional signals above 80Hz that come from your main speakers.

Maybe this'll help other people too who think this 'double bass' issue is a problem.

I do think Outlaw was dumb in how they have double bass if you have your mains set to 'large', BUT probably close to 100% of people using the 950 have NO good reason NOT to cut their mains off at 80Hz anyway.

They could have bad reasons like...
"My mains go lower so I want them to" (for no reason other than they won't think they're getting their money's worth from their costly mains if the neuter it's low bass output)
or
"My sub in NOT non-directional at 80Hz" (because their sub sucks and is playing above 80Hz harmonics, and/or they have room problems that need to be dealt with)
or
"My mains have tighter bass than my sub in the 30ish-80Hz region"
(Again, your sub sucks then. Go buy a real one).