Can Any Bookshelf Speaker Be Used Nearfield?

I have a few folks who are building nearfield desk systems that I am working with at the moment.  No, not all monitors make good near field monitors.  Any speaker where dispersion or reflections are required for image to come together are bad choices.  Raidho or Scansonic would be poor choices for a desktop application for this reason.  

You also want to account for your physical placement of the speaker.  If your desk is near wall, a rear ported monitor that needs lots of space behind is a poor choice.  Some work better than others with port bungs and you may be able to use/implement bass traps and other treatments to work around some of these issues. Secondarily, don't assume a front ported speaker or sealed speaker is automatically a solution.  

Finally, there are wonderful stands made for a desktop environment by IsoAcoustics.  They would be my first choice.  The key is getting the speaker up of the desk and getting that tweeter to ear level.  

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

Thanks to everyone for the education!  My desk actually sits in the middle of the room, and there is about 6 feet between the back of the speakers and the wall.  Based on the discussion here, I'm leaning toward the Harbeth P3ESR.  Thanks again.