You don't need to worry about unduly loading the YBA Intégré, Benjamin, because you are correct that the subwoofer, being self-powered, has an input impedance so high it might as well be infinite. You are also correct that connecting your Totem Mites through the subwoofer's high-pass filter would result in a performance hit. When we know that even a speaker connector is not truly transparent, we can readily guess that an active filter plus its wiring and connections will do something to the sound. Something you don't want done.
     So we're with you on connecting the Mites directly to the amplifier, but you will then need to adjust the subwoofer carefully. Let us explain why, and of course how.
     If you did use the high-pass filter to feed the Mites, you would choose a crossover frequency, so that the filters could arrange the transition between the Mites and the sub. With a direct connection you'll be missing one of the two filters, which is potentially a problem. But in fact your Totem speakers have their own high-pass filter, simply because their response will drop off below a certain frequency (a fairly high one, because these are small speakers). Leaving resonances out of the rather unpredictable equation, you can expect the response to drop by 6 dB/octave below the woofer's resonant frequency. Your subwoofer will have its own rolloff setting, and you will then choose the same 6 dB/octave slope.
     But what frequency do you choose? Totem claims a lower limit of 50 Hz for the Mites, but they and the subwoofer need to overlap, and we would guess that a frequency of 80 to 100 Hz will give you a better result. Listen carefully to determine whether you've guessed right. Set it too low, and the sound will be thin, despite the subwoofer's contribution. Set it too high, and voices and instruments will have a tiring "chesty" sound.
     Initially, you'll probably set the subwoofer to be too loud, because everyone does. After a couple of weeks of listening you'll want to check the settings again, and pick adjustments you can live with in the long term.

     I need help with selecting a pair of speakers with probably not-so-unique placement requirements.
     I like to fill my house with music, and my Linn Classik simultaneously powers front-ported B&W and Wharfedale speakers that are in adjoining rooms. The B&W’s are mounted on down-firing brackets a foot down from the ceiling, but do not sound at all boomy, unlike the stand-mounted Wharfedales, whose midbass hump is accentuated by placement against the longer wall and near the corners of a 14x10 ft room. Speaker reviews in your magazine and elsewhere appear to place them in a spot well away from the walls. I don’t have that option.  
     Are there specific speaker designs (ie front/rear ported, sealed, single driver) that are friendly to placement against the wall and/or in corners? I am open to small towers as well as stand-mounts, and they have cannot be limited to a small sweetspot; everybody’s got to enjoy them! My range is $1,500 to $2k, and the Classik will be replaced later with more wattage.
J. Mocarski, TORONTO,ON

     Any speaker placed near a room boundary (wall-floor, for instance) will accentuate lower frequencies. This is known as the "megaphone effect," and it funnels lows more than highs. Of course, putting a speaker into a corner, near a junction of three surfaces, will boost them even more. Note that we said ANY speaker.
     But whether the result is desirable or not depends not so much on obvious features as on the way the speaker design has been optimized. Some designers actually make their speakers take advantage of room boundaries, with the result that they sound best near walls or corners. That's true of speakers from Linn, Naim and Audio Note, to mention only three. Folded horns, such as single-driver Lowther-type speakers actually give their best sound balance only near a corner (there won't be one in your price range, however).
     You've already guessed that a speaker with tuned port at the rear will be wrong for your needs, but what you need to look at is the manufacturer's placement recommendation. Most speakers are meant to be some distance from the wall, but not all.

     I have nine-month old integrated amp, a Moon 600i. It has developed a hum, presumably from the transformer(s). It is not coming through the speakers, as I am able to get behind the amp and listen. The first three or four months of ownership it did not have this hum.
      I have disconnected the speaker cables and all other cables, I have tried providing power from a different household circuit, I have tried disconnecting the main internet cable source from our house. I am at a loss as what to try next. I have heard where this hum may be a ground loop hum. Not too sure what this means or if this is the issue or how to address this. Or if this hum is harmful.
     Would a power conditioner or a power regenerator help with this?
Owen Konski, FORT MCMURRAY, AB

     Owen, much as we favor the use of filtering of the bilge that comes into your home from the power line, it's not going to help in this instance. Your problem is not a ground loop, because if it were the hum would be coming from your speakers. What you're hearing is mechanical vibration of the power transformers (your 600i has two large ones). This is not uncommon, though it is seldom loud enough to be perceptible from normal listening position even in a very quiet room.
     Simaudio uses toroidal (doughnut-shaped) power transformers, secured by bolts through their centres. If the bolts are loose, as can happen in transport, the transformers may not only vibrate but transmit the vibration to the chassis. If you have proper tools and you are comfortable around the innards of electronic devices, you can remove the top cover and tighten the bolts. If you're in any doubt about this, call Simaudio's technical service manager. He'll probably refer you to the authorized dealer, who can do this for you while you wait.

     I have been a longtime subscriber to UHF. I always enjoy the magazine and have been the recipient of good advice on several occassions over the years.
     My system consists of a Rogue Zeus amp, a Copland 301 preamp, a Linn Ikemi CD player and Atlas Voyager All-Cu interconnects. The speakers are ASW 400 and speaker cables are by BIS Audio.
     I am happy with the music the sysem makes but am in the process of adding my music to a large 2TB hard drives in order to play music directly from my computer. As well, if I can play music from the computer this will mean I can download higher resolution music from the Internet. UHF Magazine No. 89 featured a review of of the Moon 300D DAC and highly recommended this DAC for playing music off the computer. As well, UHF Magazine No. 84 reviewed the Linn KlimaxDS and spoke in glowing terms about the music this Linn Klimax played.
     Is the music played by the Linn Klimax DS much superior to that offered by the Moon 300D? Would the music played by the Linn Klimax DS beat out that played by the Ikemi? I also want your thoughts about ripping my CDs to the hard drive using FLAC format. Is this a format that the Moon or the Linn could play?
Peter Boulton, KENORA, ON
 
P.S. I am very pleased that Gerard Rejskind is now back at the magazine having defeated the obscure bacterium which afflicted him this past year!

     Peter, the formats you can use depend on the computer software you use for playback, not on the DAC itself. FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is very good, and is compatible with a number of software packages. If you use iTunes, either by itself or as a back end to such software as Pure Music, you would choose the Apple Lossless format. For high-definition files, you would use WAV. The Moon 300D can handle files with 24 bits and a sampling rate of up to 192 kHz, and pretty much everything in between.
     You're right that we very much liked the Linn Klimax DS, which then represented the state of the art in computer music playback. The Ikemi player, outstanding as it is, is older technology and will not sound as good as the Klimax DS (it will, however, decode HDCD, which most newer gear cannot). Nor will it play higher definition music files.
     That said, technology never stands still for long. Because the 300D is new, it outperforms some very expensive older converters. What's more, the availability of Wi-Fi routers operating on the 5 GHz band has brought a quantum leap in the quality of music through Wi-Fi. What we hear from an Airport Express feeding a Moon 300D is bested only by Linn's expensive (and discontinued) Unidisk 1.1 player.
     However, note that the Klimax DS (like Linn's other "DS" systems) uses Wi-Fi only for control. The signal itself travels along an Ethernet cable, which can be awkward if your computer is on a different floor from your music system. The advantage, however, is that the bandwidth is wide enough for even the highest resolution signal, whereas Airport Express, in its present incarnation, is limited to the Red Book CD standard. To get the same advantage with a conventional computer, you will need to place it close to your music system. Some audiophiles are using small fanless computers, such as the Mac mini, right alongside their audio gear.

     I'd like to tansfer my LPs to my PC, and later to download to my iPood Classic.
I have an older Dual turntable, and unfortunatly don't get a chance to listen to LPs as often. I bought a Dual USB transfer apparatus and tried it out only on one LP so far.
There seems to be a high pitched noise in the background that transfers to the Audacity program. It doesn't seem to be caused by grounding, as grounding causes more of a constant hum. This noise is high pitched and seems to vary in frequency.
     I noticed that if I shut off my TV (which is close to my stereo) it lessens a bit. Also, if I unplug the AC cord from my laptop it lessens. Nevertheless, it's still there.
     I saw that there is a Pro-ject III Debut turntable with a USB plug. Have you heard of this and is it any good? It seems to sell for $799, a little steep just to transfer LPs.
I noticed you use an Edirol UA-24 interface box.
     I'm not sure how to transfer the recorded LP from the Audacity program to my music files. I'm also not sure what settings to use in the Audacity program. Audio I/O playback? File formats, uncompressed Export format, AIFF 16 bit PCM, 32 bit PCM, WAV 16 or 32 bit, etc., etc.
Bob Denderys, MISSISSAUGA, ON

     Our guess is that you're hearing RFI (radio-frequency interference), Bob. It can result from routing of cables, including power cables, or from grounding. You also need to be sure that the turntable's internal grounding, including grounding of the motor, is intact. Experiment also with the placement of the Dual USB device itself.
     A number of turntables now come with USB plugs, which means that they contain not only a phono preamplifier but also an analog-to-digital converter (those two items would be the ones in your Dual device). They are generally of what can charitably be called limited quality, though they are no doubt adequate for an iPod or for making CDs for the car.
     We've used 24-bit/96 kHz recording to transfer an LP to a DVD, rather than to a Red Book CD. For an iPod, we suggest 16 bits and 44.1 kHz, the CD resolution. AIFF and WAV are technically nearly identical, but WAV is the Windows standard, and AIFF is Apple's format. The iPod can handle them both. Once you’ve set the export format in the output, choose Export from Audacity’s File menu.