On the Peter Snell speakers, the only ones I know anything about, the caps are usually cascaded on the xover. I don't have a schematic but I do have a pair of JII's that I could crack open and photograph. What you're describing is pretty weird, however. I'm not sure what you mean about the woofers being 'directly wired' to the input--you mean it's not attached to the xover at all? The photo that JKent linked to is a typical early Snell xover--cascaded caps, chokes, variable resistors. The chokes would be custom wound and the adjustable resistor (I'm spacing on the name of this type of resister--wirewound?) at the top is set (note how it's glued in place) to match this particular pair of JII's to the 'master pair' at Snell. Some say the caps are cascaded for sonic reasons, but a Snell tech told me that they were just combining whatever caps were on hand to get the right value. It's also very weird that there's little or no stuffing. Most original Snells have a fair amount of stuffing, and that's definitely going to impact the mids and lower frequencies. There's nothing wrong with taking some stuffing out to tune it more to one's taste, but little or no stuffing is odd. Peter at Audio Note, which as you might know sells boutique versions of original Snells (he is pretty up-front about it), is a big proponent of minimal stuffing, but then the Audio Note J's are made of birch ply and may be better suited for tuning. Anyway, the long and the short of it is the former owner may have played around with your speakers a bit. Feel free to post a photo of the xovers and insides if you want more advice. I'm in the process of moving and prefer not to open mine up but if you feel strongly about it I'd be willing to do it, if it's helpful.