Audio Systems: what would you do?, inch woofer, crossover points

Question
QUESTION: Hey, long time no see!  we conversed a few times a couple years back.  I have a question.
I built a set of main speakers a few years back.  they are active 3 ways with 3 samson servo 600s driving them. 1" tweeter, 3" mid and 8 inch woofer.  Personally they sound amazing and I love them very much.  I took GREAT care in their cabinet construction.  I laminated 3/4 mdf and 1/2 mdf for all sides.  all speakers in separate, sealed chambers with various types of dampening/bracing etc.  crossover points are about 320 and 3.5k between the 3 speakers and the entire thing is highpassed at 90hz. (so woofer does about 90 to 320)
My problem is that the mids and tweets are 4 ohms and require very little power to produce high levels (plenty for watching a movie, etc) but the 8" woofers are 8 ohms and occasionally come close to peaking the amps during movies. They are HiVi M8N s in aprox. 2.5 cubic ft each. (Specs at parts-express.com)
to make this problem much worse, I'm planning on moving my amp rack to the room under the home theater so the amp's fans can run and not be heard.  plus I'm planning on changing from a conventional sub to infinite baffle.  so the woofers will have to keep up, but the levels can't be seen while playing.
Basically I’m wondering what you would do.  the way I see it, I have 4 options.
1 - Since the boxes are so large, I could theoretically just cut a hole so each main speaker has 2 woofers in parallel.  I’m concerned about the sound changing and sounding “colored” by the back waves of each other but this is the least expensive and most aesthetically pleasing of the options. But I’m worried if I don’t like it, now I’ve potentially ruined my wonderful speakers. Plotting this option in WinISD shows almost no change in the curve but again, concerned about the “sound” not the bass curve.
2 – build a 2nd box of the exact same specs as just the woofer portion of the mains and place it next to the existing ones so there’s 2 woofers next to eachother. This would be kindof ugly and a large job
3 – add a 2nd Samson servo amp and run each of the woofer’s amps in bridged mode.  This would provide aprox. 4x the wattage to the woofers (maybe too much but clip free).
4 – leave it alone.  Always an option but not my favorite  :-)
Let me know your thoughts on the options as well as any other ideas you may have.
Thank you for your time!

ANSWER: You can pad down the mids and tweeters to match the spl output of the woofers - which is the cheapest way to go because you will only need a couple of resistors in series with them to tone them down.

You can replace the woofers with another unit that has higher sensitivity.  They are pretty low power and pretty low sensitivity (88db).  And, by your own admission they seem to be hitting bottom when you blast them good.  So, if you increase the audio power into them you may be asking for more trouble than you want.

Finally, the Fs of these 8" is 33 Hz which means they are not giving you a really good low end performance  ---- well, on the other hand you have them in a pretty good sized box, so that is good.  

So, my question to you is whether you feel the bass sound is good enough, ignoring the mid and high end performance?  If you could bring the mid/high levels down to balance the sound would the bass performance be adequate......  That is the most important question in my mind.  If it is not then the only solution is to beef up the woofer units with something stronger.  If you do get something stronger it may even be lower sensitivity which means more power will be required. Remember, a 3db reduction in sensitivity means it will take 2 times the power to bring the sound level back to the same level as before.

The samson servo 600 amps are good at 4 ohms; don't know if they will handle 2 ohms or not - you will have to check the specs on them.  But, if the 8s were paralleled and you drove the bass mono you could get double the power into them.....

Those are my quick thoughts.




---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: awe, I should have made it clear that the levels are all set perfectly.  there are no passive crossover components like resistors, capacitors, or inductors. the tweeters have 1 amp, the mids have 1 amp, and the woofers have 1 amp, and there's an active 3 way crossover before the 3 amps.
the levels are all balanced perfectly with the gains and the system sounds beautiful.
the only problem is that the amp for the woofers begins peaking right around the time the mid and tweeter amp even shows level at all!
I really like the way the M8Ns sound so I dont want to use something else.
so I would love to simply cut a hole and add a 2nd in each box.
that would change the samson amp to 4 ohms which its perfectly capable of.
just not 100% sure on the way it would sound.
I have subs to cover the bottom end as well so these woofers are only needed for 90 to 400 or so.
thanks again.

Answer
All noted.  Sounds like you know what you are doing.

Best wishes.  Adding another woofer should help a great deal.  Paralleling the voice coils will be okey for the amplifier.  The acoustic performances of the woofers in that big of a box should be okey.  It may shift the Q factors a little but will not materially change the overall sound quality - in my opinion.

Hasta.