The disappearance of the traditional amplifier

An active monitor that is worth its salt will require a balanced input, like the ATC.

OTOH, field coils are making a huge comeback right now. Active speakers are not likely to see innovations like that since they are closed systems. So you are limited by the limits of the internal amp, and the drivers themselves.

IMO they have their place, and some of them are excellent, but they are a long, long way off from describing state-of-the-art!

Some of us actually can hear, Bob.

I've significantly downgraded my system (cost-wise) while improving sonic quality also.

It's interesting you turned this into a cost issue since that isn't what it's about.

OTOH, field coils are making a huge comeback right now. Active speakers are not likely to see innovations like that since they are closed systems.

Historically, the vast majority of field coil speakers were indeed used in "closed" systems . . . such as radios, instrument amplifiers, organs and Leslie cabinets, etc. etc. This had the added advantage of the amplifier being able to use the field coil as a power-supply choke - effectively working to reduce the cost of two parts (choke and speaker magnet).

The main push for the adoption of permanent-magnet speakers came after World War II, with the demand for larger separate speakers for movie theaters and music production - many the very earliest examples of these at first had separate field-coil power supplies. The introduction of Alnico V as a magnetic material (itself developed during WWII) was the main reason that field-coil speakers were abandoned.

But as always . . . audiophiles have very fickle preferances, and while some may find it interesting and comforting to experiment continually with the amp/loudspeaker relationship, it seems to me that a significant number of posts here on the Audiogon forums is by people who are asking advice on trying to get this right -- maybe some of them would enjoy a product where this was already done for them as part of the product engineering.

Kirkus, can you elaborate on your opinion of the current Genelec's?

I happen to use the small 8020's (with a sub) in my video editing system, but often listen to music through them in the nearfield.

While nothing like the performance I get with my tube based audio system
I found them to be better than my previous very high quality passive mini monitors, I felt due to the Genelec's sculpted cabinet and waveguide tweeter.