1. It's easy, you pull 13 out of the ground and put 4 back in. This installation happened to be on a wall about 5' tall, with a steep slope behind the speakers, that runs along the length of a swimming pool, probably 65-70' long. The guys who did the original installation just kept throwing Sonance sats at the area to try and get the volume level the client wanted, which is how they ended up with 13 sats in the first place. The comb filtering was atrocious. They were using the Crown CDI 4000 to drive them all, so it should have had more than enough power.

2. I used the NEAR 3XL amplifier for the LB8's and a NEAR 7XL for the subs. They have their own pre-written EQ curves, but I tweaked them a bit to make it sound better once it was in place.

3. Subs were run 8 ohm. I have never found woofers to sound as good on any of the 70v systems as they do when driven 8 ohm.

4. I have only encountered two of the Episode systems in the real world. They sounded fine for what they are...I think they are a small step back from Sonance, which is a small step back from the NEAR sub/sat systems. The NEAR are a different, less appealing form factor(more similar to the shape to traditional speakers than the "landscape spotlight" look), so you have to take that into account and hide them well. I think the commercial sound background that NEAR has in their engineering makes them carry further and play louder. I have a location with 4 of the LB4T and 2 of the IG10 running off of a 3XL amplifier, and I think it sounds better and plays louder than a similar space where I have a Sonance LS4T/LS12T/DSP 2-750 system.

Of course, for most all clients, any of these systems are incredible. They are often coming from using a Bluetooth speaker on the deck, or a pair of low-end bracket-mounted speakers under their eaves, so any bass at all is a huge step up.