What would be the better of an Atom driving passive speakers of approx £1500 or an Atom HE with active speakers of the same value?
Considering each option.
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It’s really an impossible question, as the speakers will be different in each case, or if it’s active or passive with the same speaker, the former will be more expensive. To me, my Atom HE with active PMCs is clearly better than the passive version with a Nova, both options being broadly the same price. Others would take the Nova option. The most important thing is to find a system that you enjoy listening to, and that means listening to stuff.
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A lot will depend on your room. Speaker/room interaction is arguably the single most important thing to get right. There are many passive speakers to choose from, and limiting your choice to the small number of active models available will reduce your chances of finding a good match. A good dealer will be a big help in finding a solution that works for you.
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If you are using an Atom HE with passive speakers, do you need an amp or is one built in to the Atom HE?
An Atom HE doesn’t have a built in amplifier so either connect it to an external one or active speakers.
I ran mine with a pair of Dali Menuet SE which I still own. Sounded superb
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I run the Atom HE into a NAP100 and then into Proac Tablette 10 sigs. Second hand the latter two are probably around the £1,500 mark (maybe a little more) and I find it a wonderfully engaging system. For the record, my room is 5m by 4m, and choice of music generally on the faster side of things, with classic rock and modern pop among the usual array of tunes. It’s not an especially warm system if that’s what you’re after.
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That’s a nice solution, as the 100 is one of the few, maybe the only, Naim power amp with phono inputs, and of course the HE has phono outputs as well as its XLRs.
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Depends where you are looking - there are many actives on the pro-audio market. Whether they are to taste is a different question, but it’s probably what your favourite track was mixed on… 
Active speakers come in a number of guises, often incorporating DACs and the like, but I assume you are considering basic models with just power amps and active crossovers. If so, there’s not that many of those for under £1500, at least in the hifi world. Certainly forum favourites ATC and PMC start well above that figure.
One set that is within your price range is AE1 actives of which I happen to have a pair! I run mine with Auralic Vega G2 which is a high quality combined streamer and preamp. I’ve not done a careful comparison, but I found the sound of that setup more satisfying than standard Atom into similarly priced Neat Iotas, admittedly in a different room. Whether AE1s with Atom HE would be a runner I don’t know, but you might want to put that on your audition list.
Roger
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I think the question was Atom HE with active speakers vs Atom non-HE having its own power amp into passive speakers.
But to the op, if Atom is more expensive than Atom HE then your budget for active speakers could be greater than for passove. And don’t forget that secondhand pr ex-dem can help yo maximise buying power,
It’s not.
Roger
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So you tried two completely different systems to evaluate passive vs active PMC’s but when I wrote about comparing Atom HE with active ATC 19’s vs XS3 with passive 19’s and preferred the passive’s all hell broke loose because ‘I’ wasn’t comparing like for like
Can someone explain why I had s**t thrown at me while HH has done exactly the same thing with no complaints whatsoever?
I’m starting to think you’re playing the less than intelligent character to troll people.
I don’t remember anyone having a concern with your decision to choose a passive system over an active one. The problem people were having was that you were continually stating the Cambridge streamer was better than the streamer inside the Atom when a direct comparison of just the streamer was not made.
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Actually posters said I didn’t try a like for like system when comparing active vs passive, which is true but I still chose passive because it sounded better to me with my current system
Believe me, the Halibut has also taken lots of flak 
Okily A10… x
I had a Nova and passive PMC 21i speakers. I took the Nova to the shop and came home with an Atom HE and the active boards for the speakers. I removed the passive crossover, connected the active boards and plugged the speakers into my new Atom HE. It’s the first time I had heard either the active speakers or the Atom HE. I had no dealer demonstration first.
All I’ve ever reported is that I prefer the active to the passive system. That’s it, nothing else. I’ve never stated that one is better than the other. Whether you consider what I did to be the same as the comparison that you made is something for you to decide.
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Fair enough in my book.
I personally didn’t like the PMC’s I’ve heard, they were all passive though.
Active can be entirely different, I’ve heard ATC which was way better in active mode, well it certainly depend on passive amplication, so not easy to conclude.
My advice don’t get annoyed if peoples comment contradict your thinking, there will always be divided suggestions.
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Of course it’s fair enough. What wasn’t fair was the assertion that the Cambridge streamer is better than the streamer in the Atom HE. It may or may not be, but it’s a conclusion that was impossible to draw from the comparisons that were made.
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