Combine speakers using active crossover?

I think your suggestion is to output the same stereo music to both pairs of speakers, one pair in front and one pair at the back.

Many AV receivers has a "mode" to do what you suggested. For example, "all channels stereo" for Onkyo receivers and "extended stereo" for Pioneer receivers. Those mode would output same stereo music to both pairs of speakers if I only enable 2 pairs of speakers. My surround speakers are already behind me. Thus will work exactly as you suggested once I swapp out the LS50 with James speakers and playback in "extended stereo" mode. I will have Paradigm as the front and James at the back, both playing the same stereo music.

Hope this is less confusing.

 

Update:
I ended up with the following setup this week:
Paradigm Studio 10 as front
James Symphonic 10 behind me
James Symphonic 8.2 as center
Big sub behind me
Crossover lower to 80 Hz.
So far so good. I have the detail high and the nice mid bass now. Have no desire yet to use additional crossover.

 

Due to Litejazz53 urging to move big speakers to the front, I tried for over a week to make it work again. Unfortunately, I could not over my initial issue. I finally gave up and bought an external crossover.

Based in my experience for the last few days, I have this to say for those who wish to try to combine speakers using external crossover: It is not likely going to go well unless you have other tools available.

I got the minidsp 2x4 and crossover at 300 Hz. My Paradigm Studio 10 got 300 Hz and up and my big James Grand Symphonic 10 got 300 Hz and below. 80 Hz and below going to my big subwoofer.

Initially the sound simply did not impressed me. But once I ran the Pioneer MCACC and get it to do it's magic (like full band phase alignment, group delay adjustment, standing wave, eq, etc), the small and large speakers now blended really well into nice 3 ways speakers. Thanks avanti1960 for the minidsp suggestion.

 

Update:

Unfortunately, I found that minidsp is not really a optimum solution for me. With minidsp in the signal paths, piano sounded not as natural and human voice has an extra layer of metallic sheen.