To the OP, it's a complicated question with no single, clear answer as you can tell from the replies.
I happen to prefer digital active (since I like the experimenting) provided you can fall back on some kind of power treatment to ward off any digititus. But, that's just me. Others might greatly prefer good passives or good analog actives.
But, I agree it does depend on your goal. If all you want is to replicate the stock parameters, but improve the sq, then upgrading with better passive components may be all you need.
But, if going active, the main catch is how intimate are you with how the original crossover was designed. If it can be entirely duplicated with whatever level of sophistication of your active crossover has, then you should be ok. And at that point, if you're looking to tweak the original design somewhat, you should be able to.
One more problem, though. Passive crossover components often have a tendency to 'obscure' things a bit sq-wise and traditionally this has been looked upon in the manufacturing community as an opportunity to 'hide' (sweep under the rug) some minor details of driver mismatching...things that might become audible to you if you undo the maker's work. If it should come down to the fact that the drivers are less than well matched (and this is perhaps more common than you might think), then this might be something of an audible problem whether you are improving things actively OR passively). But, every design is different...and it may be an unknown as to whether or not that might apply or whether it might not be objectionable to you, if it does. That will have to prove to be a judgement call that you'll have to make and the only way for you to make it might be after the fact.
But, there's no real way to know (unless you know of someone who has your speakers and who's been there and done that) until you take that plunge yourself. It's not that I'm telling you that it's all a bad idea, I just mean that you should be willing to accept some risk if you're going to roll the dice on it. But who knows, it could turn out very well, better even than you might have thought, actually...especially if you're that persistent.
But, likely you'll have to hear those results firsthand and that means that I can't make a recommendation for you one way or the other. I can only outlay, as above, what you might run into, if you choose either.
I happen to prefer digital active (since I like the experimenting) provided you can fall back on some kind of power treatment to ward off any digititus. But, that's just me. Others might greatly prefer good passives or good analog actives.
But, I agree it does depend on your goal. If all you want is to replicate the stock parameters, but improve the sq, then upgrading with better passive components may be all you need.
But, if going active, the main catch is how intimate are you with how the original crossover was designed. If it can be entirely duplicated with whatever level of sophistication of your active crossover has, then you should be ok. And at that point, if you're looking to tweak the original design somewhat, you should be able to.
One more problem, though. Passive crossover components often have a tendency to 'obscure' things a bit sq-wise and traditionally this has been looked upon in the manufacturing community as an opportunity to 'hide' (sweep under the rug) some minor details of driver mismatching...things that might become audible to you if you undo the maker's work. If it should come down to the fact that the drivers are less than well matched (and this is perhaps more common than you might think), then this might be something of an audible problem whether you are improving things actively OR passively). But, every design is different...and it may be an unknown as to whether or not that might apply or whether it might not be objectionable to you, if it does. That will have to prove to be a judgement call that you'll have to make and the only way for you to make it might be after the fact.
But, there's no real way to know (unless you know of someone who has your speakers and who's been there and done that) until you take that plunge yourself. It's not that I'm telling you that it's all a bad idea, I just mean that you should be willing to accept some risk if you're going to roll the dice on it. But who knows, it could turn out very well, better even than you might have thought, actually...especially if you're that persistent.
But, likely you'll have to hear those results firsthand and that means that I can't make a recommendation for you one way or the other. I can only outlay, as above, what you might run into, if you choose either.