@thespeakerdude , Funny you should mention that. I am in the process of helping my son in law set up his first system. He has limited space so we are working on small studio monitors with subwoofers. We traveled around Denver and listened to a bunch of them. All of them near field. Only two made me believe they could perform at what I think is a reasonable level for a point source system, The Dynaudio Heritage Specials and the Harbeth P3ESR XDs. The 10 or more others ranged from garbage to terrible. He went with the Harbeths as they are a much better value and the bass deficit will be made up by the subwoofers. What I find interesting is that my son in law, who has extensive exposure to my system went right for these two speakers without me uttering a word. We only talked after the auditions as I wanted him to understand the thinking of an audio sales person. My son in law is a robotics engineer so his understanding of technical issues is immediate. Other than my system and live concerts he is an inexperienced listener. In order to know what to listen for you have to have experienced it. The majority of audiophiles have not. Many of the might have fallen for one of those other speaker which could not image properly if their designers lives depended on it. Imaging is far more complicated than this instrument is on the right and this instrument is on the left. Proper imaging floats instruments and voices in space with nothing but blackness in between, giving each it's proper size and timbre.
While near field monitors have definitive advantages they are all point source monitors and at the very best capable of a 90% image. Only true full range line sources can produce a 98% image (with the right recording). Even with digital correction and crossovers this is the best point source speakers can do. You can also never get closer than mid hall. With line sources you can get right up front without having to stick your head in the speaker.
