I had a play yesterday with the V12's positioning and, as expected, it sounds better next to the cabinet than it does in the rear left corner.
Only snag is, the Mrs prefers it hidden... (and so do I truth be told).
Necessity being the mother of invention, it occurred to me - and I'm not sure why the penny hadn't dropped earlier - that the AV cabinet could make a perfect housing for the V12
The cabinet is split into three, and each of the three sections has a removable shelf and removable back panel. The V12 would fit comfortably inside one of the sections. Given that the cabinet doors are slatted, I think this might just work. I don't think the slats will present a problem provided the driver is set back a bit (it didn't for
this monster IB sub). The cabinet is quite heavy too, so I don't expect it would rattle much under normal use, and any rattles could be dealt with.
@Seriously Ltd - I see you've done similar with your X10s. Did you surround them with any insulation?
Aside from it sounding better, one very significant benefit of putting the V12 at the front is that I ran dual sub outputs to a wall plate behind the MLP sofa, which are now both freed up ... I can see a near field sub build somewhere in my future
(so much for not thinking about upgrading for a while!)