thank you everybody for the kind words. i'll be quite honest and appreciate why no real takers. it is difficult to appreciate how loud these cabs are unless you have a 100m jack lead. the projection is massive compared to a closed or reflex box. however, as a bass player, you stand pretty near your cab, so all cabs will sound much the same for given driver efficiency. so as usual, watts isn't the whole answer, a 3kw kettle doesn't make much noise, nor a 100watt lightbulb. it's all down to how efficiently you use that power, in this case, generate noise. that's what the bfm cabs do, so 500watts into this compared with a conventional 2 x 12 would certainly be equal and carry further. the disadvantage being that they are a bit size lumpy.
fraid i've gone off the idea of splitting, it's now or never unless anybody wants the empty cab for their own drivers.