Depends on your electronics, cabling, and budget. Typically, the amplification with a powered speaker is very well matched to the speaker. Unless you have a greatly superior amp already, the powered speaker configuration would probably be better. Try them out, trust your ears.
Also, you mentioned a home theater setting. That suggests that you might be obliged to have longish cable runs from your electronics to your speakers. Conventional wisdom says its better to have long runs of speaker cable (from your amp to passive speakers) rather than long runs of interconnect cable (from your preamp to active speakers). The rationale is that the latter carries a lower level signal over long distances, more subject to relative noise pollution and cable impedance effects. This has been a matter of considerable disagreement on Audiogon in the past, so I offer it with a grain of salt. Good luck.
