[Monsoon1]

In a previous life, I spent around 20 years digging into every single known aspect of speaker design/building.

And I think I can clear up a couple of points here.

Near field monitors are simply 2 way.
Hate to burst anyone's bubble, but that's all there is to it.
The reason has to do with crossover design, and it would take a very long winded explanation that might give anyone new to this a big headache. (it's gonna be long winded as it is, lol)

But suffice it to say that the math behind this is precisely why it's common to see monitors laid on their side and tilted in by a certain amount. It's because the true center point of the sound does not come directly straight forward from the cabinet, but rather off at an angle. So by laying the monitor on the side and tilting it in at an angle proportional to the crossover slope, you are in effect compensating for crossover issues.

And when I say the sound comes off at an angle, what I mean by this is the true center point of phase where the sound is actually merged in space, comes off at an angle, and not straight forward as might otherwise seem.

Now as far as comments about limiting diffractions, room boundary effects, etc., those are completely coincidental to this, and have everything to do with placement, rather than the fact that the monitor is "near field".


As far as 3-way speakers go, there is no single point of angle that you can lay the monitor down at to correct for the crossover slope. This is because there are now two crossover slopes that are not both correctable at the same time by tilting the cabinets to any degree.

One modern solution to this sort of business, is to use a D'Appolito configuration, which puts the mid-bass woofer on the bottom and top of a tweeter.
This creates a unique situation where the sound does actually come directly in a straight line from the cabinet.
These are also called MTM monitors, and the tweeter of the cabinet can be placed perfectly centerline to the ears, and pointing directly forward. And this works both with the cabinet standing straight up and also on it's side.