Which is better for a DBA (Swarm); powered subs or unpowered?

Thanks for all the new responses! Let's see if I have this right:

@ieales doesn't like Dayton subs b/c they have "no delay so there is time smearing. What you end up with is a fat, detail-less low end pillow."

@b_limo seems to agree with @ieales, at least to the extent that "with the dayton amp, you aren’t able to adjust [the phase of] each one independent from the other", which is needed if the subs aren't equally spaced from the listening position. Makes sense.

@clearthink also seems to agree with @ieales, unless the listener likes loud, thumping bass (I do not, unless I'm wasted and listening to loud, poorly produced classic rock (which does happen, but not as often as I'd like).

@audiorusty seems to lean toward powered subs over one bass amp, because they have more individual control. But he cautions that DBAs are more easy to integrate, since you only have one amp to adjust. My response would be that I don't enjoy spending time tweaking my speaker settings, but if that's what I need to do to get what I consider to be "good sound", I will put up with it. Score one for powered subs. (since you asked, my taste is generally 60's-70's folk, prog rock and classic rock at moderate volume (85-90 dB) for enjoyment, and classical at lower volume for background while working or going to sleep (but I still want it to sound clean). Not so much jazz.

@heaudio has a LOT of good info regarding the difference between getting the time delays right vs getting the phase right, and I have sooooo many questions. He seems to think you can get this right with a well implemented DBA, but I'm not sure how. If he has time to discuss it more, I'd love to know how to text him (or email, phone, whatever).

@millercarbon initially gave some very useful input, and seems to recommend Dayton(s) in a DBA, but my last round of questions scared him away and he has moved on. Nevertheless, I thank him again for all his advice.

So, after all these responses, I have a lot better understanding of the issues, but am no closer to deciding whether I should buy a Dayton and cheap passives, or buy two better quality actives and save my pennies for 2 more.  Maybe the answer is "it doesn't matter", but I really hate that answer... Thanks for hearing me out.  Peace, and enjoy the music!

Distributed bass arrays do not result in "fat" bass.

By FAT I mean that unless time correction is implemented the separate sub signals will arrive spread over several milliseconds.

The beater whack on a bass drum will arrive asynchronously to the head resonance, which will arrive multiple times. Depending on the room, subs and positioning, some may arrive before the beater and some after.

IMO, it's as unlistenable as MP3 which are only acceptable in mono.

Perhaps it's because I sat so long in a recording engineer's chair, but there is ONE spot that has the correct image. Period. I never worked in any studio where the monitors, if they were time aligned, were not aligned at the engineers seat. NO STUDIO EVER had distributed bass.

@ieales Thanks for the clarification, but I think I understood you the first time.  As I understand it, "fat" means that the wavefronts from the four subs reach your ears at different times, in the case where they are not equidistant to the listener.  That is not the sound I want.  However, even if you DO correct that (either by spacing the subs the same distance from the listening position or by inserting time delays to get the same effect), the phase will still be an issue, since (as @heaudio123 noted) the phase is a function of the frequency.  Since the wavelength of a bass note varies by a factor of three in the range from 20 to 80Hz, that means (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that the phase could be perfect for the listener at 20 Hz, 40Hz and 80Hz, but off by as much as 180deg for the frequencies in between.  Having said that, I don't know how AUDIBLE this is, and I'd rather not waste my discretionary spending on something that fixes one of these issues (like time delay) at the expense of the other issue (phase).  And again, thanks for chiming in; I hopefully am learning enough to be dangerous...