It turned out that this cat suffered temporary amnesia. When Pál Nagy had built my Lifesaver Audio icOn 4Pro SE, it included 4th-order/40Hz hi/lo-pass outputs on RCA. I was staring right at them; had I x-ray vision to see the passive-magnetic preamp's business end from the chair. Herr Professor! From downstairs I quickly repossessed an Audiophonics NCx500 stereo amp with 700wpc/4Ω and switchable RCA inputs. Whilst that lacked a bass attenuator, I had volume on the Kinki/Vinshine Dazzle integrated—with remote no less. Rather than scale bass gain, I manipulated that of the mains. At 36dB voltage gain for their amp vs 28dB for the sub's, that was key. At 055 on the Dazzle display, I soon found my ideal balance. Now the remote-controlled master volume with enormous orange readout rested with the icOn SE. Filtering the Vox3 to be down 6dB/40Hz and applying thrice the bass power made an obvious difference; and dovetailed the D12 most seamless. No need to wait on dbx. I was styling already. Still, I meant to sample higher filter hinges. Pál's fixed filter uses first-rate discrete parts. The budget dbx runs state-variable filters. That means summing amplifiers with cascaded op-amp integrators in a feedback loop. Set to the same 40Hz 4th-order function, comparing that to Pál's execution would plainly show whether the 234xs created any insertion losses on the speaker signal. I had my marching orders. Until then I was already tickled an unseemly pink. Even at high SPL the triple-wire suspension footers truly isolated the D12 from my suspended upper wooden floor for zero discernible structural coupling. I also liked whatever stain Martin had applied to the open Ply surface to get it closer to the cherry monitors. Splendid all around. Then Herr Professor had another grey-cell moment. Didn't his hifi closet still have a small unmarked 80Hz/4th-order crossover which had survived sundry clearance giveaways? Bingo for memory and even more splendidness. Letting one ultra-damped 12" woofer per channel handle the 2nd octave rather than two small force-cancelling 5¼" was too obvious to miss. End of today's story? Not until dbx could settle my 120Hz question; and whether its variable-state filters would negatively impact the main speaker signal.

… to be continued…