coo1asice, I am also a second year engineering student and perhaps I can help anwser your question (if dan F could help me out that would be great)
P = I^2 *R = ((DeltaV)^2)/R
This means that the power the amp puts out depends on the voltage and the resistance of the speakers. So the Sub is supposed to be about 160W and the sats about 60W Right.
So, we can assume that the voltage will be about constant between the amps so we can compare the sats resistance and the subs resistance to get a comparison of the power.
160/60 = 8/3
So the sats have about 2.66 times the resistance of the sub.
I measured the resistance of one of the sats and got 5.2 ohm's.
This means that the sub has a resistance of both subs (total ) should be about 1.955 ohm's
Now I could be wrong -- hell I am sure that I messed something up ==
but the important thing is that the same amps produce different power when hooked up to speakers with different resistance.
I also believe that you either have a defective sub -- or it is in a bad spot in the room --