I see the active vs. passive as a swings and roundabouts thing - if I was starting from scratch, totally, I would do the "sharpest" active design, for all its obvious advantages. The downsides are that I would have to learn how to excise all the quality demons caused by having everything in one box - the cross interference thing. I would approach it by getting the first value for money variation on the Kii thing that comes out, and "fixing up" the implementation.Interesting that most of you guys seem to be focusing mostly on the LPs vs CDs vs NAS angle.
IMHO, the use of passive speakers and separate amps is just as big of a debt.
Not from a convenience POV, but from a performance POV.