Had this same problem. I talked to a lot of Hertz dealers and they said with 2nd order crossovers, the manufacturer absolutely takes care of the phase issue, at the crossover. So you wire + to + and - to -... I don't know how it is with other manufacturers, but the ONLY way to tell for sure is by using a phase checker or whatever the thing is called. A good reputable shop will have one. And as for the delay issue, from what I understand, each time the signal passes through a crossover, the phase will be modified, but that isn't "delay" per se. If it passes through 6 separate 2nd order hpf crossovers for instance, each time will add +90 degrees of phase (-90 for lpf), so 540 degrees, but since it's phase and not delay, that's the same thing as a total change of 180 degrees. Every time you get to 360 you start over at 0