Active speakers—ie, those that that have built-in amplifiers—are generally unpopular with audiophiles. One well-known speaker designer working on his state-of-the-art speaker contender told me at CES that he would like it to be active but marketing told him that it wouldn’t sell, so he’s staying with the passive design.
I guess Precision Transducer Engineering (PTE) didn’t get the memo—or maybe they wrote their own. (Their White Paper “The Case for Active Speakers” can be found here). The PTE Phoenix, a two-way, three-driver, largish stand-mounted speaker has three built-in 130W amps. The Phoenix—demoed at T.H.E. Show—uses very high-quality drivers, including a double-magnet Scanspeak tweeter, and audiophile-quality electronics. The price of $5700/pair for a speaker that has built in amplifiers and electronic crossover seems very reasonable, and the speaker sounded really good.
