Self powered speakers for Benchmark Dac1 Pre

Are you open to sitting near field? You will have a lot of studio options if you are.

I am open to trying near field. Since the source is a PC to the Benchmark I might try putting the speakers on the desk with the monitor vs. across the room against the wall.

How would people describe the differences between near field vs normal speaker positioning?

I own the benchmark and have done just this with a pair of quad self powered monitors. Sounds pretty good. Though depending on what you were thinking of spending on speakers you may be able to get into a set of dynaudio xeo 3 speakers. Check them out they are everything DAC/amp all in one. There is a little box that takes USB or spdif or toslink even an analog in sent wirelessly to the speakers that only need be plugged in. I personally own both of these setups and there is no comparison the dynaudio xeos are way better and so much less clutter. I had a huge rack of gear in my bedroom a system that retailed over 10k and I like the xeos just as well. They sound so good that one would almost wonder why bother with all the clutter and wires at all.

Near field is about the same (a little more detailed) but you can get away with smaller speakers because they don't need to fill the room, only the listening area. You also tend to get less rom effects.

Focal CMS50