Actually the term "nearfield" is all about room sound vs direct sound balance. If you have a set of speakers in a room and sit a few feet back from them, you get a mix of room (reflected sound) and speaker (direct sound). The further away in the sound field you sit from the speaker the higher the ratio of room sound vs speaker sound. If you have a small speaker in a far field set up, its awful cause its almost ALL "room sound (reflections)" which may or may not sound good. The closer you sit (nearfield) the less room you hear compared to direct sound from the speaker itself. Sit "nearfield " enough and you hear just the speaker, making the room differences negligible on your decisions. Engineers starting hauling Auratones, then NS10s, then 1031's around to studios they worked in for this very reason: every studio and their "big" monitors in the wall sounded very different.
Recording Engineers, who typically travel from room to room depending on work, used nearfields as a way to get similar sound in very different rooms by sitting very close to them, cutting the room [sound] out of the equation.
Brad
Recording Engineers, who typically travel from room to room depending on work, used nearfields as a way to get similar sound in very different rooms by sitting very close to them, cutting the room [sound] out of the equation.
Brad