I don't have a lot of expereience but a passive M2 (requires an amplifier) and an active Mackie 824 (self powered) are such different animals as studio monitors as to be difficult to even compare.
THE most important thing in recording is accuracy in all the frequencies. No bass humps allowed and the monitor better reach some pretty low freq's or you will make up for it while mixing and end up with a bass heavy mix.
I have a pair of active Event 5" Project Studios and in my limited recording experience I would always end up with mixes that sounded great on the Events but would just be bass mud on any other system that could reproduce bass better than the 5 inchers.
What I was doing is dialing in a LOT of bass on the Events because they couldn't reproduce those frequencies. Hence the mix would sound good but too much bass for any other system that could reproduce bass.
So I got an active subby and the mixes improved, or at least they weren't as bass heavy as before.
Mackie 824's are considered state of the art by some and panned by others but they are VERY popular because you can get all the frequencies reproduced with its wide frequency response.
The M2's which requires an amp would be one the least suited speakers I could think of because of its limited bass response (unless a sub was employed) and the bass hump (or any other hump) in the M3 automatically disqualfies it as a studio monitor, but that's only accrding to conventional wisdom.
PLUS studio monitors are designed for near-field sound reproduction, not to fill a room.
So probably best to get studio monitors for what they are designed for and loudspeakers for their designed intent as well.
Hope that helps
