Thanks for posting your observations! As a musician, you really have an excellent grasp of what you're listening to. And with your technical experience, you're in a very qualified position to describe and quantify what it is that defines these qualities in a system.I agree with you about not liking the resonant boom-boom sound of some woofers. I call 'em mudmotor woofers because that's exactly what they sound like to me. Must be tons of motor nonlinearity, and they just sound terrible. Distortion free bass and proper damping is really important to me.