What is nearfield listening?

Nearfield is listening close to the speakers so that most of the sound reaches your ears directly from the speakers. Its an attempt to take room acoustics and reflected sound out of the equation, much like listening to headphones. SOme speakers are designed for nearfield listening ie to sound "best" listening nearfield. The focus may be more on flat on-axis frequency response along with detail and perhaps also dynamics to some degree. SOund artifacts that require room acoustics and reflected sound to be heard, like imaging, soundstage, and "air" are not a consideration.

I agree with Mapman. Also, nearfield monitors must have drivers close together for proper integration. Floor standing speakers with drivers mounted across the front baffle are not designed for nearfield listening although many people use this type of speaker this way due to small listening rooms. This is a good reason to select the speaker that fits your room.

Most none orchestra recordings are mixed using near field speakers very close to the mixing board. Headphone mixing is even worse, yet seems to be done to often. So, there is nothing "normal" about the speaker/room/listener arrangement present. That is one reason that so much of what we are presented with to hear in recordings is pretty bad. It is the reason things like imaging, soundstage, and "air" are often missing.

YEs, good point. NEarfield listening requires tighter co-location of drivers for proper integration/coherency across the audible sound spectrum as Rrog indicated, although that often helps with imaging, soundstage and detail in non/less nearfield listening configurations as well. Proximity of drivers becomes less important geometrically when listening from a more distant location/perspective.

SOund artifacts that require room acoustics and reflected sound to be heard, like imaging, soundstage, and "air" are not a consideration.

I disagree. Imaging, soundstage and air do not require reflected sound. The can be enhanced by reflected sound, but it is not required.