BB4B,

Good question.

I use an outboard low frequency processor that has a seperate channel for each sub, including a preamp section with gain, thatI use to level the volumes. I leave the 950's SW trim and the player's SW level at a reference level and season to taste from there using the LF pre/pro gain controls.

The 950's master volume keepsthe RB sub fairly leveled with the satellites.

I say 'fairly leveled', because when the volume is lowered for the system to below a certain point, the Fletcher Munsen hearing curve makes it sound as though the low frequencies are not calibrated anyway.

I've found that the .1, or LFE sub needs no leveling in the case of DVD-A/SACD multichannel tunes because they mostly contain low levels of signal in that channel.

In fact, I find that, in that case, if I lower the rest of the system, volume-wise, the LFE sub's volume staying the same fills out the Fletcher Munsen curve perfectly.

On DVD playback, I simply don't listen at all over the map levels. The roughly 3 different levels I use, for whatever reason, are easily and quickly adjusted to as to what level the LFE sub should be for each setting, and I adjust the LFE pre/pro gain accordingly before starting the disc.

This can just as easily be done using the LFE sub's amp gain, or the SW trim in the player's menu.

If I watch a flick late at night and don't want to disturb anyone (in which case, it's never a bass-heavy action flick), I simply mute the LFE sub altogether (as well as bump up the center channel trim 3 dB for dialog).

Why, oh why can't the pre/pro designers just add a discrete LFE output jack and a toggle to sum the outputs (RB and LFE) ALA the Lex MC-12??

Some recent trivia:

I've recently worked with 1 design team of a new pre/pro regarding this very thing and the related bass management particulars.

I've also begun some interesting modulation distortion tests based on the idea that this set up (of discrete RB and discrete LFE subs vs the single, summed signal to whatever number of subs) results in huge improvement in reducing this kind of distortion during playback of MC audio.