@erik_squires You put me in a bind- I can't avoid making you wrong; if I don't jump in, then I made you wrong, If I do jump in, I have to say there's no such thing as a digital speaker...
Seriously though IMO powered speakers are not the best choice unless you're pressed for space. The first powered speaker I heard was the old Acoustat. The speaker was pretty good but the hybrid amp it used was kind of terrible. It taught me an important lesson: If you want to improve either the amp or speaker, you have to change out both if your speaker is self-powered.
This hasn't changed in the class D era. There is as much variance in the sound of class D amps now as you hear with the spectrum of all tube amps. Some are musical and others are not. If you want to improve the amp in your speaker, you're likely going to have to replace the speaker.
IMO/IME better if you can work out a decent speaker and then if the amp doesn't suit, get a different amp.
And so the same applies if there is a digital only input. How good is the DAC in there? Its only been recently that DACs have gotten good enough and small enough that doing something like that might make sense. But what if you want a better DAC or amp or speaker....