Mains upgrade advice (long)

[DS-21]

I've found myself with a little time to breathe, and I'm going to upgrade my mains. The main point of this upgrade, honestly, is aesthetic, because big grey studio monitors are ugly. But since I'm going to be spending the money on new cabinetry anyway and my new-to-me receiver (Denon AVR-4306, bought on impulse primarily for the Audyssey MultEQ XT and because it was a very good deal) has preouts that my prior receiver (Panny XR55) lacked, I thought maybe I could upgrade performance a bit, too. The drivers are set: the 12" Dual Concentrics from my current mains (Tannoy System 12 DMT II) with a Peerless XLS12 (830500) and XLS12-PR underneath each one. The crossover between woofer and tweeter in the Dual will probably be modified to suit the new cabinet, even though it will be roughly the same width as the 12 DMT II. (It will be sealed, and less deep.) The mains will be supplemented by a low-Q sealed sub - I got in on the Maelstrom-X preorder, and hopefully that driver will be an upgrade to my current Ava18 - presumably in "LFE+Main" (aka "DoubleBass" for Onkyo people) mode, powered by my current sub amp (Crown XTi2000).The electronic parts I could use in the course of this upgrade are as follows:

Velodyne SMS-1
2x NHT A1 monobloc
Dayton 240W plate amp
Panasonic XR55 (5ch in)
Adcom GFA-535II, GFA-2535, and GFA-5800

Here are four alternatives I've been pondering, from least to most complex and/or expensive:

1) Grow up. In truth, I feel like the Tannoys lack nothing, except that they're ugly. And Audyssey has improved them further. BUT, more low-distortion displacement in the sub 150Hz range never hurt anyone, getting more bass and therefore less excursion out of the Duals certainly cannot hurt, more woofers might smooth out the bass response over a wider area, the cabinets won't cost much more considering that the centers of the Duals will be at ~54" off the floor anyway based on listening experimentation, and it's kind of sad to think that all of this cool stuff is just sitting idle. So the mature, reasonable option is probably a non-starter.

2) Use the internal bass management in the 4306 to roll off the Duals at ~150Hz, and feed both the XLS12's and the 18" sub off of the sub-out on the receiver. I could use the XTi2000's built in crossover to roll off the big sub earlier, if placement requires it. This option would be my favorite, as I could do it without buying any more electronics. I am, however, a little concerned about going mono below 150Hz. Also, I was hoping that with the receiver I could sell my SMS-1 because of the Audyssey's bass EQ, but for this option to work I think I'd need it because I doubt the 4306's sub out could drive 3 amps, one of which balanced.

3) Set the sub crossover to 80Hz or so for the sub, and biamp the mains using the Denon's built-in amps for the Duals (with passive HP), and active for the XLS12's. The XLS12's would get signal from the mains preouts, and the sub from the sub-out. In this option, I'd probably buy two more of the Dayton 240W plate amps, simply because they're cheap and work well with the XLS12 IME. I'm not worried about designing the HP for the Duals, and I'm pretty sure I could sell the SMS-1 if I go this route.

4) Use the 4306 as pre-pro only, with active crossovers between the Duals and the XLS12's. There are several routes I could go here.
4a) The easiest (and most expensive) would probably be to buy three Crown XTi1000's, using their crossover and EQ functions. I think that would be the best route, but I neither want to spend the money required nor, truth be told, do I want four silver amps (these plus my current XTi2000) staring me in the face.
4b) Alternately, I could go with a Behringer DCX and use my existing amps (or maybe buy a third NHT A1 for the XLS12's and use the 2535 for the Duals), but I've read through 6 pages of threads on that unit here and the indications seem to be that I'd need a volume control between the DCX and the amps. For obvious reasons in a 5.1 (5.4?) channel setup, I'm unwilling to consider that. And then there's the whole balanced input thing...
4c) I would also be willing to consider use of a "car" speaker management system, such as the AudioControl DQXS. (I used an AudioControl 24XS car unit in a previous system design, and it worked fine.)
4d) Did I miss something easy and obvious?

So which alternative would you choose, and why?

[ThomasW]

You covered way to many options and gear combinations....

That said .....

I like bass bins, but see zero need for them to be in a vented alignment when there's a sub in the mix..

[DS-21]

You covered way to many options and gear combinations....

I know. Brevity, not my strong point.

Also, I'm trying to work through the options as they occurred to me. Thinking out loud, as it were.

I guess the biggest question I have is, how badly would it kill things to have everything mono below 150Hz or so?

I like bass bins, but see zero need for them to be in a vented alignment when there's a sub in the mix..

I certainly don't disagree. In truth, my main reason for going PR on the bass bins is that I already have the XLS12-PRs, so my thought is, why not use them?

My more sophisiticated rationalization is that, if you stipulate running all the mains fullrange and supplementing the bass by also including the LCR bass signals below 80Hz or whatever to the big sub in addition to any LFE signal (what Denon's Audyssey setup routine calls "LFE+Main") may smooth out some problematic bass peaks in my room that currently require too much (IMO) Also, eventually I could probably replace them with active XLS12's, which would allow me to go passive and get as many electronics boxes out of the room as possible.