Why are we so passive?

Shadorne:
Very informative post.. yeah I kind of knew all that. It just irks me, like the new cd I purchased, John Mclaughlin's "Thieves and Poets" I think(?) and there in the background are those damn Yamahas... my favorite guitarist in the whole world with those Yamahas! Now if they were NS-2000's with the beryllium domes...

gmood1? What designs out there, that you can name off the top of your head are either "crossover-less" or have a "minimal" crossover, of some sort? I for one would appreciated a list.
I used to have Sonus Faber Electa/Minima Amators, which used a very simplistic crossover, and THEY WERE VERY VERY DYNAMIC for two way monitors! Infact, it really made me notice how much more "dynamically right" and exciting speaker sound can be. Infact, my Sonus speaker STOMPED my Thiel 2.3's into the dust, dynamcally! (Only thing with those speakers was that the sound "varied", depending on how the power fluxtuated at my home. The speakers sounded decidedly better durring the day, when power was low out of the wall, and sounded kinda dull at night, when power was high!...strange.)
I, to this day, tend to look for designs that offer this approach, maybe even "no crossover" at all.
Any considerations out there would be appreciated. I like to keep up on the stuff.

Undertow has added some good points. For example, an active speaker allows the designer to control phase more precisely. Actives have less compromise than passive crossovers; less trade offs in power loss on passive elements, keeping phase changes minimal whilst balancing frequency response (the kind of issues that make some people swear by single drivers...although a single driver has trade offs too....but that is another story).

Flrnlamb, Most of the crossoverless types available are full range single driver type systems.. Using like Lowther, and Fostex drivers for example.. To get extreme lows or highs some systems will keep the important midband which is mostly the meat of the music and where most find music to fall apart or be its harshest or not detailed enough, and then simply add an active subwoofer, or even Tweeters to extend the range out further from the top or bottom.

has anyone mentioned price? owning a nice amp and being able to upgrade spkrs w/o having to replace amp is a waste of $$. it does not make sense to re-purchase amp everytime you want to change out spkrs. as noted above, tubes in a spkr cabinet is a heckuva challenge as well