Most real world passive speakers have 5 to 8 dB of L-pad resistors on their tweeter to match sensitivity to the woofer. Most woofers in 2-way speakers have 4 to 6 dB of baffle-step compensation (resistive loss) above ~400 hz. Therefore, passive speakers usually benefit from 4 to 8 dB lower noise than the same drivers hooked directly to the output of the amp, except in the bass where our hearing is less sensitive.
I would contend there are a myriad of active speaker designs, just as there are in passive speakers.
If anyone ever hears any hiss out of a KEF LS50W or LS60, send them back, because there is none. Zero. Nada. You can superglue your ear to the speaker - there'll be no hiss. Of course they are a completely integrated design, but they are active speakers.
Even my humble, 10-year old, $200-or-so Audioengine A2 have zero hiss. I keep the volume knob at about 45% and control them via the DAC-preamp. I have never checked if there is hiss if I turn the knob full volume, because in a very near field environment it is simply a stupid thing to do - I don't need that volume level, ever. I should note most of the time I listen through headphones and not the A2 (even though they sound commendably awesome given their size and price).
I have listened to Genelecs in an extremely quiet room, but I have to admit I have never held my ear to the tweeter. But I am utterly noise allergic, hearable hiss would draw me out of my mind. My Benchmark Dac HGC started to emit a low high pitched noise, and i heard it from the other end of my listening room. When I sent it back to Benchmark, they at first said they couldn't hear anything, until I insisted, and they replaced the power supply.