[George Prentice]

I think Kal correctly asserts the primary difference is in setup. They are designed to be listened to near field... so you listen to direct radiated sound not stuff bouncing around the room. You want to know exactly what is on the recording. Then there is the fact there is a huge control panel in front of them for mixing... this effectively eliminates many audiophile speakers designed to place two huge speaker cabinets in an open space.

This opens up the question of fidelity to the “original sound” I have been rather fascinated with for a long time. I have religiously attended our symphony, 7th row center for many years. So it has been easy to make sure my gear accurately reproduced the music... volume also. That gives me a ruler. That can be done with acoustic performances. But when it comes to rock and electronic, that gets hard. I have concluded that to reproduce those... well, have to find out what they were mastered on. I find some rock really missing the mark... I think they were mastered on some monitors that were a bit hot and so the treble was softened... anyway, an interesting topic.