Pros and Cons of built-in amps?

Mr Tennis: When you are about to purchase a loudspeaker do you try every amplifier in the market to test its compatability with it? Or, when you buy an amplifier do you do the same with every loudspeaker manufactured? If not, how do you know you are making the best use of your monetary resources? Maybe there is still a better amp or speaker out there you haven't tried and would sound even better in your system than the component you settled on. I assume the designer of the active system is a degreed and experienced engineer who wants to maximize the potential of his design and has taken the strengths and deficiencies of both the electronics and drivers he has chosen into account before that system is put on the market. Your freedom of choice is limited by geography, cost and experience.

Dave thinks vacuum tubes make the best amplifier designs. Two of the greatest enemies of the longevity of electronics are heat and dust. What do we have with tube circuitry we do not have with solid state designs: heat, dust, microphonics, phase shifts from the output transformers, weight, degradation of the tubes which will continue to deteriorate everytime they are powered never sounding the same way twice, tubes acting as RF antennas, tube replacement cost, bias adjustments, a rise of ambient heat in the room, poor damping factor because of those same transformers, limited high frequency response, questionable resale value due to a very limited market, among other things. Yes, it is too bad tube circuitry cannot be incorporated into an active design! I guess active designs must be inferior and poor value. I wish my computer had tubes. I have an empty room i could use to contain it.

For Bob Reynolds: I like the way you think. I am intolerant of those who condemn an entire design on belief and prejudice exclusively and not on research and experience. Ultimately, sound appeals to taste but many circuitry implementations are nothing more than glorified and expensive tone controls. Worship often excludes truth, accuracy and adherence to an objective standard.