A near field monitor is one that is design to be listened to in the near field. Simple, eh?
The “near field” of a loudspeaker is area where the direct, unreflected sound from the speaker dominates significantly over the indirect and reflected sound, sound bouncing off walls, floors, ceilings, the console. Monitoring in the near field can be useful because the influence of the room on the sound is minimized. Near field monitors have to be physically rather small, because you essentially need a small relative sound source to listen to (imagine sitting two feet away from an 18″ woofer and a large multi- cellular horn!). The physics of loudspeakers puts severe constraints on the efficiency, power capabilities and low frequency response of small boxes, so these small, near-field monitors can be inefficient and not have the lowest octave of bass and not play ungodly loud.
