Once I had active Avantgarde Acoustic speakers, they have costed around 10k new. For all the reasons above mentioned I thought that it could be a good concept. I was wrong, because I did not liked that particular sound. No matter how I tried, with few combinations (with Burmester 011 preamp and Burmester 001 cd player, than with ARC Ref 3 and Dcs Puccini) I could not escape hearing their amps, which simply were not to my liking.
My point is simple. No matter how ’concept’ might be good looking on the paper, everything has its imanent sound. For example, I do not like the sound of ATC. I like Sonus Faber much bettter. Than again, I would never use the amp from SF (they had few models as well)
So, there are so many great speaker brands and so many great amp brands. Until the ones you like them most start packing them into one box (which is an illusion ) there aint going to be ’best’ speaker/amp one box solution, no matter how ’accurate’ somebody claims they are. This discussion is pointless, imho