Glad to hear you experienced an improvement !!! One thing you can do to improve the sound of the mega-woofer is to experiment with a mono-block amp or higher output amp. I test my speakers with 60, 100, 200 and 400 watts. The 60 watt is a joke. YUCK. With 100 the sound is good. But at 600 the dynamics and headroom go through the roof. 400 is just plain fun. Yes it will play louder - but it's also if another layer has been peeled off the onion. Mind you - all these objective observations are with the same drivers, crossovers, wires, connectors etc.
Glad you are having fun and unraveling more the equipment to reveal more of the music !!! And, an IPA always helps. It's in all the technical publications - scientific fact, and all