Originally Posted by
logicology
Is this for a home studio setup? If you will be very close to the speaker say... 5 or less feet you probably want to consider an actual near-field monitor. Using normal loudspeakers in a very close setup make the acoustics hit your ear before it interacts with other surfaces. Near field monitors, in my experience, are more forgiving in these situations. I'm a composer and engineer for a game company. I'm currently building a new studio which will house a set of Sierra-1's (among other monitors), but they will be about 15 feet away. For near field monitoring I use another dedicated near-field monitor setup.
Dave, I'm sure, will chime in with better answers... but you have to consider that some lower wavelengths can actually be several feet long from crest to crest. That means with close speaker setups, you're hearing some frequencies before they even complete a full cycle. And in very small rooms, the frequencies will start bouncing around before they complete a full cycle.