Active speaker, the future? or another fad?

You know, as someone who's been around the high end business for many years, and who is also an advocate of the "active speaker design" onthewhole, I personally think it comes down to marketing...just ask Bose.
I think if you had a good product (and there are potentially good active designs floating around out there for home use), and could market it well, you'd have a winner. I think like any of this, it would depend on what the individual companies could do, bottom line.
Again, if Bose can sound the way it does as a speaker line, and outsell everyone to death the way they do, that says a lot!
I personally would like to see the "Big boy's" of High end audio (Thiel, Wilson, and yes, B&W, etc)offer some active designs, and get their retail sales reps/stores to properly sell them.
I sold Meridian for years, and have yet to see one company push that line to success so well in my area, personally. While I don't particularly care for Meridian as a speaker line (always sounded Dark and sythentic a bit to me) I have heard other high end active offerings from companies that are simply stellar sonically. Again, these lines are harly recognized by the public at large, and really only catter to a small nitch pressently.
I think someone would have to step up BIG TIME and push active speakers on a larger scale to really make an impact, and larger change towards more active approaches.
As it is now, you got your "Receiver junkies" who want an "all in one box" with whatever speakers you can "add on" as an after thought running the market for "DIY'ers". Other than Custom, the high end is a lot of 2 channel guy's who like to "tinker with gear", tube amps, vintage turntables, and basically "oldschool". Of course, there's a lot to be said for a lot of the "old School" gear. But I think people are used to what they've been around. I see very few audiphiles or main stream consumers considering or even talking about acive speakers...besikdes maybe a pair of Def Tech's with a powered woofer built in or something. Other than that, again, someone like Bose would have to come out with a completely active line before everyone started jumping ship in regards to speaker line reconstruction. For now, passive speakers are probabaly staying put in peoples homes...sad to say. Like you said, there's are a lot of advantages offered by active speakers, namely compatibility and precision, along with much better improved dynamic capabilities and realism. But as long as people are stuck in their ruts, it's going to take a lot to jar em loose...and that includes the manufacturers

I would like to adress what Trelja commented on, in that I understand an "audiophile's" desire to "tinker" and find combo's he feels best match his speakers/needs. Really however, whether an amp is built into a speaker or not makes no difference from one scenario to the next. If that amp is maximized to sound it's best, and perform to highest standards, it's a much better proposition than doing "passive amplification/crossover" approach BY A LOT!
i WOULD TAKE ANY DAY A BETTER ACTIVE DESIGN with built in amp over my best amp sellection on my favorit speakers, yes!..that is if I like the overall sound of the active speaker to begin with. If a speaker has the ultra refined transparancy I've come to appreaciate from companies like Thiels, Wilson's, Magnapan's, Merlin VSM'setc), and has kept that integrity in an active design(only better in dynamics and soundstage/realism), then I'm all for it! If a company can make a successful effort with the above mentioned speaker designs, I wholehartedly feel they can keep "that sound" with careful amp sellection in an active effort, yes!!!...why not?
If that's the case, I wouldn't sweat the "amp selection" any. I'll gladely take the "active advantage", yes sir!..much more control, dynamics, pressence, realism, power, finnesse, speed, wow, you name it! (if you want a tast in a "quasi active design", go hear Avantgardes).
Although, you don't have to have "built in amp's" to have an "active speaker design". Avlar out of Systems Design Group in Redondo Beach, California makes a very high end sounding "active speaker" ($12k-30k/pr I think), that is basically a "speaker enclosure with drives(although well designed ones)" minus crossover. You use an external crossover(they used Krell at one point), with their own amplification(was Krell). In this case, you could use whatever amp's and crossover you chose!...YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE STUCK WITH THIS COMBO! you could use any amp/crossover you chose...this might be a better OPTION for those who want to tinker..and those speakers sound exceptional! I'd take those over any typical passive high end design, if willing to spend the money, indeed...very very dynamic/powerful(stomps passive designs in the dirt!), yet very refined and high end sound. The best I've heard in an active design personally.
Speaker makers can offer a choice of "built in amp/crossover" or "external amp/crossover" and still maintain an "all active design"! The latter let's you chose your weapons, the former just offers a simpler, yet effective approach, like I presume ATC offers.
I've not yet heard ATC's, only heard reviews on the $90K one's.
Anyway, It would be "nothing" for a company to build active speakers, and offer an outboard external active crossover that works extremely well, then let you either chose your amp's (like we already do all the time anyway), or chose theirs! Simple really. Yet, every high end speaker maker has given me all the excuses why they are "not interested" enlarge in active speakers. Mainly, "heat"(although digital amps run cool), space(BS if you ask me), cost(what cost?!!) marketing problems(I guess they think everyone is stuck in a "passsive speaker rut" in the home market..dunno.), etc.
I've said it before and I'll say it again..."high end speakers are stuck in the passive realm with limited dynamic transparancy and realism" If you think not, just pop in any heavy rock, techno, rap, ESPECAILLY FULL RANGE MOVIE TRACKS FROM dd/dts, and listen to your pathetic full range speakers distort, flatten out, and cry for dynamic help!!!! Basically, most all high end passives sound pathetically whimpy and laid back dynamically for the most part. When you feed em the goods, they go "bye bye"! (ok for Dianna Krall and "pawn shop", but not for Metalica sorry).
MORE ACTIVE SPEAKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I'd promote Avantgarde's if you din't have to sit right between the freakin things....)

Phlanoue, who's making custom active crossovers you can substitue for stock passive unit's in speakers, that still make the speaker "balance" sonically like it was ment to using the original passive?
My couple of attemps over the years of bypassing the passive crossovers in passive speakers has yielded to so great results. Maybe I'm missing something. Any recommendations and combinations You think would work with passive speakers using active crossovers peronally? Thx Phlanoue. I'm interested in your comments here

Hummmmm. I seen no reason why what you're saying shouldn't work, and maybe work well if pulled off corrrectly. I'll have to do more experimenting.
I once took a pair of Thiel 2.3's and tried "bi-amping" them (*adding another set of pots, one to mid/tweet and one to woofer). The sound was too bright and unbalanced. I didn't try bypassing the passive crossover all together however, and replacing with an active exertnal set up though. I guess I assumed it would give similar results, and that the drivers where balanced with "that stock passive crossover"!
Maybe I should contact some of these speaker makers and pick their brains.
Any input?
If what you're saying is correct, and by substituting an active for passive cross is that simple, and you can retain the sonic integrity throughout, then you should simply have a much much better speaker overall with a well integrated and executed active crossover application, right? I mean surely you'd have much more control over your drivers, higher damping, less power requirments potentially, and more flexibility, yes? What do ya think?

Ok I have one more thing to add on the idea of "simply swaping an active for a stock passive crossover" in a speaker...I seem to remember having not only talked with manufactures but actually been to speaker manufacturing facilities/plants, where I saw first hand that the crossovers(passive of course) where tweaked to help "tailor the sound" quite a bit! Where there were peaks and dips and "anomolies" between the drivers/enclosure/whatever, the manufactures often "design in" the changes in the crossover to "compensate" for those imperfections or anomolies to make the sound, well, sound right!
Dunlavy audio, for one, used to hand tweak all their custom made in-house crossovers to match each specific speaker! I sat there and watched their engineer(s) adjust cappacitors and resistors(whatever, I'm not a mechanical/electical engineer) to comensate for "less than ideal conditions" or responses in the speaker USING THE CROSSOVER! This is how they got everything to "measure right"! Now, maybe this was a "quality control" or "consistency issue" among the drivers they were using, I don't know.
Still, I went to Infinity's plant, as well as P.B.N's shop, and have talked with makers from Sonus Faber/Summiko, Martin Logan, and others. And I'm under the impression that the "artform of building crossovers" to make the sound "right" is what they all work hard on! You take the crossover out of the equation, then swap something else, I'm wondering how good of a sound you can likely expect, in regards to tonality, balance, phase, peaks, anomilies, etc...you get what I'm saying?
Maybe it would be best to sellect a passive speaker who's crossover network is "the simplest"...first order crossovers, with modest slopes, etc. Hummmm
Anyway, any input here?...or am I just making this difficult. I REALLY WANT TO FIND OUT MORE HERE, AND DO SOME "CUSTOM ACTIVE TINKERING" here! The thing is, before I start tearing appart my speakers and changing things again, I just want some more feedback from others who've touched bass on this "change in dirrection" from the original thread.
What do ya think guy's?.....

Gregm, why whould you go through the trouble of dissasembling a speaker, bypassing the crossover for the bass woofers, AND NOT MAKE THE UPPER MID/TWEET DRIVER(S) ACTIVE AS WELL!!!? This doesn't make sense. Yes, I can see the advantage of actively driving the bass w/electronic outboard crossover/amp combo. But, if you're going to do that, why not make the whole freakin speaker active, and use one outboard electronic crossover?! This makes more sense. Unless however, like I mentioned earlier you start running into problems in frequency response and such from the mid/tweeter by "ditching the stock passive". In that case, I understand leaving things "as is".