This is my current setup.

Naka cd 700 -> H701 -> Butler Tube Amp -> passive Xover -> DLS Mid
...........................|.......................................|
...........................|.......................................L> DLS Tweet
...........................v
Soundstream 1002 -> DLS Midbass

I got bored this arvo at lunch time and took the H701 out of the chain to run the speakers as stock 3 ways off the Xovers from the Butler amp.

The results were surprising (never heard it in this config before) but its like the midbasses are now totally overpowered by the mid and tweets even though they're set to "low" on the xover settings.

The butler gives 150 wrms so i don't think its a power issue.

has anyone noticed the DLS iridum 6.3 midbasses to be not as efficient as the mid/tweets?

Perhaps the more guru'ed ones could explain what i'm observing?

im not an expert...

the midbass wouldn't be out of phase?
also the gains on the amps? assuming the midbass are still connected to the soundstream?

I would check all your wiring. Except note that the mids wouldn't be getting as much power, and also the butler amps are not known for serious midbass. The butler amps forte is the midrange and highs.

This is a far as I know anyway, I could be wrong on the midbass of the butler amps, but I think I am right.

I've never been impressed with anything but tonality from the Butlers in the midbass. In terms of strength and response, I've always found them lacking.

Why have the H701 if you were running passive?

So you took the DLS Irid midbass from an active setup and hooked them up passive. It's pretty obvious too me, you've dropped them from having there own amp giving them heaps of power to sharing 150rms with two other speakers through a passive, not only have you probably 1/2'd there power supply but your losing even more power through the passive, so I wouldn't be surprised if there only getting 1/3rd to a 1/4 of what they were getting before.

Hmm.. I guess i'm just surprised that the "stock" set up is so lacking in midbass.

I've since hooked the sub back into the system and hit some test tracks.

It seems that there's jussssstttt enough midbass to pull the doof up front like we all like it.

Perhaps that's what DLS intended?

I"ll fiddle with it a bit at lunch time today, see if i can come up with something more interesting.

thematt>

The DLS 3 ways seemed to lean itself to a semi active setup what with the mids having their own Xover and the tweet/midbass Xover having jumpers to disable the midbass output.

i used the xovers to give the speakers a measure of protection... you think i should go fully active?

With the kind of setup you have got. it can't be the case that passive will sound better than active. Did you play around with your XOV point/slope well enough? did you have enough time to play with level matching between each speakers.

If you can give me more detail PM me