I Was Considering Active, Then I Watched This ...

Actives not for me after my experience with a powered sub.  Granted the sub is 13 years old, but it is a Paradigm Sub 12 that cost $2499 new.  Worked great until it just stopped.  Plugged into a surge protector and wired to a Marantz Pre/Pro that is still working fine.  My guess is that the amp or the board controlling the amp just quit.  Nothing much I can do to fix it.  Think about spending significant $$$ on a pair of actives-- and then the amp in the speaker stops working after a decade or so.  You OK with that?  Not me!

I used to be in the pro-actives camp until my own experience with them. I read all the great reviews and also lisetned to (sounded great) and bought the KEF LS50Ws but after having different issues with 3 (yes 3!) pairs of replacements I finally managed to get a full refund from the dealer.

While there is probably an advantage in that you get a properly matched amp and speaker in one system the downside of losing everything if something goes wrong is a huge negative, at least for me. It doesn't help that none of these speaker companies have any meaningful warranties on their active systems with 1 year being the norm (at least the ones that I know of). I was lucky my KEF LS50s had all the issues in the first year itself so could get replacements and finally the refund. 

"Fools and young tone deaf rubes may beg to differ, but The Audiophiliac speaks truth!" 

Don't forget the seniors with hearing loss who may be best suited for actives firing directly into the face. 

I'm holding out for a pair of active speakers with an internal amp, DAC, CD player that is also portable. Hey! My boom box in the garaurage does that.

jperry- and you care about what he says because ...?
You need to listen for yourself.

It’s not the listening part I was questioning it’s the compact nature of the active speaker over that of a passive and what better effects they might have on a lousy room. Something, I thought an active speaker may be a better solution for.

Also, it seems extremely difficult to listen to active speakers anywhere, at least around this neck of the woods. So if I want to listen for myself, it looks like I have to arrange a purchase with an in-home trial. If that’s the case, I really need to narrow down the field as I don’t want to get on the return shipping merry-go-round.

SG states about ¾’s of the way through his rant that "as the speaker ages you get stuck with the out-of-date DSP"

According to Buchardt their active speakers have been designed to be upgradable by switching out the active module which can be easily done in 5 minutes with only a screwdriver. They will be producing a series of videos on how to do this shortly.

Not sure if any of the other active speaker manufacturers offer this option to upgrade, but it sounds like a good future proof feature.