JimJ

Sub outs aren't required...I've never owned anything that has a sub out, and my Shiva doesn't care If that's your only gripe with your current one, don't bother with another, just get a good quality LOC and be done with it.

Hiquophon & Morels might be another place to look...little cheaper than the Scans, at least the ones linked.

Infinities aren't known for tremendous midbass, but making decisions based on how they sound in a totally different install environment doesn't make a lot of sense either...

I don't bump, I listen to music.

First, I'd get rid of the tweet that comes with it and order the silk replacement from Memphis. The metal one has a hump around 10K that you can (mostly) take care of with an EQ, but I'd rather just start with a better tweeter in the first place. I'm not sure I'd run the 8's unless they were going in kickpods...that's asking a lot for an 8" to have great off axis response up to 2k. The 6.5's do it fine, but I'd hold off on the larger driver in doors.

The SSD or BM 10" get my vote.

An Alpine screen unit would give you video and the ability to control an H701 processor Keep the amps...if you can fit the Shiva, I'd probably use that, no real need to buy another sub when you have one that'll do the job fine. And if you can get the output you want while keeping cone movement low, all the better.

For a passive set, I thought the Polykevs I heard weren't too bad, and the Focal/JMLabs floorstanders I've heard were decent. Definitely could do worse.

An open load is more of an infinite impedance, a dead short is an extremely low impedance.

Two sealed 15's.

It shouldn't...I've heard of a few solid state amps that have problems with that, but none that have been built recently...

If messing around with 70 year old amplifier and speaker designs has taught me anything, it's that...chances are, somebody's tried it, and there are a lot of ideas out there that shouldn't be discarded in today's world Altec used 16 ohm drivers in cabinets the size of 'fridges, and they'll still rock your skull out to this day. Because amplification wasn't - and still isn't, for the non-mass market stuff - cheap. Or easy to move for that matter

I'd rather go with the 2 12's. More cone area, not going to run into power compression as fast, less cone movement needed to reach a certain level of output resulting in less distortion...pretty much a win-win any way you look at it

What format were you using? I wouldn't trust anything short of 320K or FLAC rips that you can guarantee aren't transcodes. On Telarc's recording of 1812, for example, the last howitzer barrages have sub-10Hz tones...if you have a ported box, there's a good chance that it's just not audible. Even with John Williams' soundtrack to Superman, "Planet Krypton" has a sustained 16Hz organ note at the end that's hard to pick up on in a ported enclosure tuned at 28Hz or above, it's just rolling off too soon. Another issue is simply moving enough air, period...takes a lot of linear displacement I'd like to find more Baroque or other-time period organ pieces that have strong infrasound...full size pipe organs go much lower than what we can hear, and do it with ease. (And it's also a heck of a lot more listenable than "This is Why I'm Hot"...but that's an issue for another place :)

I'd go with the Q's sealed, but try to cram as much cone area as possible without sacrificing enclosure size. You can't fit dual 15's or 18's?

Telarc's 1812 Overture goes lower than any of the ones you listed...

I'd go with two Q's sealed, personally.

If you have the space for a pretty large enclosure, that's not a terrible idea...basically where the old Stroker got its origin from This fetish for smaller boxes, more power and lower impedances really seems to be self-defeating.

I'd rather have the SSD's anyway, less peaky drivers, better musical potential...may or may not matter any to you.

Totally false.

They look almost as ugly as the DLS Nobeliums : Good stuff.

I'm not exactly sure where you're getting this from, I'm not trying to compare the BTL to the XXX at all...just saying they aren't going to be the end all for every installation

Don't like what? Not liking something and not having something work are different things...doesn't matter how much someone likes Fi, if the BTL isn't the right driver for a specific installation, that's that.

Just be careful with it. "Getting used to it" is a good recipe for losing your hearing by the time you're 30.

Just be careful with it. "Getting used to it" is a good recipe for losing your hearing by the time you're 30.