"Pro" Active Monitors

Reference quality is something of an over statement, but the Tannoys will provide you will high quality sound. I personally prefer the JBL LSR28Ps (available for less than $1,400 pr.). Spendor, Mackie and ATC also make superior quality active monitors. One thing to be careful about is that these speakers are near field monitors and are intended to be listened to in that manner. You will also need to budget for a high quality stand.

Well, you are definately correct, in some cases. Take the ATC speakers. They started out as ONLY doing pro-audio. All of their speakers are internally bi-amped or tri-amped depending on the number of drivers. ATC took home the Stereophile system of the year for 2001 also... 60% of the recording studios have them, including Sony and Todd AO.

You can get a pair of internally powered Active 10's for $2500 or active 20's for $6900. Both are just amazing bookshelf sized monitors.

The Paradigm Active 20's were also an awesome speaker, but they stopped making them due to lack of interest. Internally amping is actually the best way to go if designed properly. On the ATC active 100's for example, they have 50Watts on the Tweeter, 100 Watts on the MidRange, and 200 Watts on the Bass unit. There is nothing sweeter when the amps are engineered for the specific driver right up front!

Secondly, it is better to have a long wire run BEFORE the amp, where an internal amp has a VERY short run from the amp to the driver. Especially with a balanced cable run, you can run much farther without nearly the loss as you would lose with a powered signal. Lastly, Internal passive crossovers are also not as good as an Internal active crossover....

I've never heard the Tannoys, but worth a listen.

The type of music you listen to may have a large impact. Most studio near-field monitors are meant to be very revealing (so recording engineers can hear what is being done to the signal as they lay down a mix). I have a home project studio in which I use Tannoy NFM 8s (with 8" dual concentric drivers) run by solid state electronics. My listening room however uses tubes and speakers with a rolled-off high end, which I prefer when I'm listening to classical music. For jazz and rock the monitors may be just the thing. You can get a pair of Tannoy Reveal active monitors from www.musiciansfriend.com for $799 with a 45 day money back satisfaction guarantee. Hard to beat.