Hi Ian!
Thanks so much for the generous response. Very interesting, and it does answer the questions (at least qualitatively) about which I was curious (and also corrects a couple of misconceptions / incorrect assumptions). The close correspondence between your design priorities and the decades of acoustic research by the NRC is quite clear. I'm enjoying learning at least a little bit about the practicalities of the subject, from several sources. By no means is that sort of insight essential for enjoying the final product artistically (which is a faithful in-home representation of music and film soundtracks), but I think that it can add a new layer of appreciation to the hobby when the conjunction of basic research (especially with regards to the way humans perceive sound), tremendous engineering effort, and underlying scientific principle is acknowledged.
I take it from your description of the slow, shelf-like rolloff of the 6.5" woofers (part electrical & part mechanical), that they are indeed working in tandem with the smaller 5.25" woofers, and appreciably so, for another octave or two above onset of the crossover frequency (and likewise below, where the smaller woofer is rolling off mechanically). Very naively, it seems like this gives them "more to do", which strikes me (again, very naively) as a good thing, with potential benefits for global power handling. Are you able to quantify the effective combined filter slopes that apply in these two cases? If it is more detail than you generally care to get into, or too much of an invitation for "back seat engineering", then I understand.
Cheers - DSQ
