No, the 3808 is not capable of dumping power over and above what each channel is rated. Kudos to Axiom...the A1400-8 is the only one that can dynamically assign more power.

Your explanation in the second paragraph is absolutely correct. 130W to the woofs and another 130W to the mids/tweets. If the woofs need more than 130W, they can't draw from the mids/tweets. If you look at the speaker system as a black box, it has the potential of drawing as much as 260W \:\) .

Heh, heh...I was thinking of your last paragraph last night. I see absolutely no reason why you can't run the front and rear channels to a speaker with the binding posts on. That would permit 260W to be shared however the drivers see fit. The only time such a scheme would create problems is when the signals of the front and rear amps are of differing magnitudes and phases causing current to flow from one amp to the other. But this wouldn't be possible if the rears are also configured as fronts and set to the same channel levels.

As a matter of fact, even with our Denons today, if we configure the distances of the side and rear channels to be the same as the distances of the fronts and adjust the channel levels to be the same, we should be able to wire all channels to our fronts, put it in 7-channel stereo and send our families packing \:D .

Jason, maybe you can try this today with your 80s. Like you said, it never ends \:\) .

House of the Rising Sone
Out in the mid or far field
Dedicated mid-woofers are over-rated