Go with the F110, one will be fine. I have a single F110 in a smallish listening room and it's more than enough bass. I know you said you wanted to set aside DARO but let me tell you that the room correction in the F110 is one of the primary reasons why it will work better for your specific listening space because it will correct any nulls or room nodes you might hear in the sweet spot, which IMO is all you should care about. Of course, you'll hear a lot of tubbiness if you get up and walk around the room, but in all seriousness, who cares what it sounds like outside the listening space? Once you run the auto-calibration off the F110 with the mic in the listening spot, the bass will sound perfect. Trust me, I've done it over a dozen times after changing listening rooms and room configurations. The F110 does a fantastic job of EQing the room from the listening space. I don't have the acoustic theories that a lot of other people rely on, but I agree with @jetter in the sense that people overcomplicate this subject a lot. What I do have is actual experience setting up the F110 in several different rooms and I can definitely vouch for its attributes. In fact, I've finally upgraded my stand-mount speakers because, for the longest time, I wanted speakers that could complement the performance of the F110.
Now let me answer the original question you asked, which is which sub would be more "musical," the E110 or the F110. I think that boils down to how you define "musical." Let me just establish that I consider the description musical to be the opposite of, say, clinical. When I hear the word musical, people are often using it to contrast it with a sound that's fast, dry, grippy and detailed. Some people don't like those characteristics in gear but I quite like it. And it's actually what I like most about the F110. It's a very fast, grippy sub, but at the same time, it will convey warmth and musicality IF it's inherent in the recording. For example, one of the great recordings for showing off the F110 is an album by Brian Bromberg called Wood. Bromberg plays an 18th-century double bass but he uses a lot of very percussive fingering and plucking techniques that saturate the soundstage with minute transient detail, all of which is picked up marvelously by the F110. But, at the same time, because of the bass he's playing with, there's a tremendous amount of warmth to go along with it, which the F110 also conveys exceptionally. Another recording where the F110 plays very warm and musical is Schubert, Die Nacht played by Anja Lechner and Pablo Márquez. So, basically, I'm saying that the F110 will be warm and musical if it's inherent in the source material. But if you asked me to describe the sub as "musical," I wouldn't use that word because it's a very fast, grippy and detailed sub, which IMO is just what you want in a sub.
Finally, I will also highly recommend an active crossover. I saw you mentioned the CR-1, which is the one that I also have my eye on. But before pulling the trigger on it, I tried a much cheaper active crossover, the MiniDSP. In a previous post, @erik_squires and others were very helpful in explaining to me the effects of driving too low frequencies to the 7" woofer on my stand-mounts. I've since incorporated the MiniDSP to roll off the frequencies below 90hz from the stand-mounts so the JL is handling all of those and the results have been very satisfactory. The amp is working more efficiently for frequencies above 90hz and the overall tonal quality of the soundstage is more finely detailed.
So definitely go with the F110, one will be fine. And definitely use an active crossover. I hope this answers your question.
