Smoother bass by running woofer out of phase?

I think you have a difficult room where the bass traps do not suppress its resonant modes adequately. Wiring the woofers out of phase causes their bass sound waves to cancel each other out, resulting in reducing all your bass sound, including the unwanted resonances. I think you would be better off with a room analysis and an equalizer treatment that specifically reduces the resonant frequencies while leaving the nonresonant frequencies alone. There are systems that do this, like Rives, TacT, or even Behringer.

At least one researcher in the field of subwoofer/room interaction recommends using two subwoofers operated 90 degrees out-of-phase with each other. I have used subs operated 180 degrees out of phase with each other at times. It offends one's notion of order and symmetry but can sound very good.

You may even get in increased sense of spaciousness from the out-of-phase configuration. And the bass isn't reduced as much as you would have thought, is it?

Duke

You are right, in that I am satisfied with the amount of bass I am getting in out of phase mode. Also there is considerable more space and dynamics. What nags me is whether or not this is the way to solve the problem. I got this idea from owning a Rel sub where they suggest in hooking up the sub out of phase which may reduce bass boom. By the way I am not currently using the sub in my system. I thought about using an EQ like Rives, but maybe I would get the same results.

I had a similar problem that was solved perfectly by Rives' PARC. Well worth the investment, but make sure it's set up by someone competent, optimally using Rives' BARE system.