That's the biggest complaint audiophiles have when it comes to comparing studio gear with home-audio. But when Proficient Audio Systems (PAS) decided on naming an entire series after Near Field Monitors, they've somehow already made the bridge between these two sub-sections of the audio industry a whole lot easier to trudge. By spending some quality time in the realm of audio studios, PAS has thought of all the different components of studio monitors that may be used for home entertainment. And to test the waters, they'd sent us their NFM6s.

If you were to reveal Yamaha's near-field monitors from their boxes, what you'd find is almost an identical pair to the NFM6s. They have the same hard-edged black cabinet, sparkling from all sides. Even the black drivers look the same. However, the NFMs have been designed much differently, catering primarily to the home-entertainment market which demands speakers to be more than just a 'one-manlistening' tool. They need to be a little heavy and they are, primarily because it provides them excellent stability while handling those low frequencies.

These speakers have been designed to bring sound imaging in a much more closer plane that means that the sweet-spot has been widened while the overall soundstage has been reduced enhancing the dynamic response throughout the listening area. With a 6.5-inch polypropylene cone woofer and a 1-inch aluminium dome tweeter, the NFM promises to deliver accurate, full-range response in a stereo or a multichannel environment. But due to that narrow soundstage, the NFM6s have automatically lost their spot in being used as surround speakers but they've gained extra points in the front channel position.

The tweeter has that dispersion grill on its front but the design of the speaker is such that the highs are most likely going to need to be tweaked by speaker placement a bit. So if you need the trebles a little more, you're going to have to tow in the speakers a bit and if you want it less, you can keep them pointing straight at the back wall. This placement takes a little while to get to an optimal level and since no two rooms are the same, there really is no standard way of doing it.

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We decided to keep the speakers a little towed In, because that's just what we usually do with bookshelves unless they prove to us that their position can be tweaked otherwise. We dropped in the 'The Perfume' OST and sat back skipping over to the track The Perfume'. one of our favourites as you might have guessed. The violin and the choir blissfully came through the drivers. spanning across a soundstage that was about 4 feet in length (the size of our couch).

With the advantage of the NFM, the rest of the orchestral elements slowly started to creep into the track, building up the megasandwich which is the end - we were expecting to get hit with that massive chunk of instruments a little harder, but that didn't quite happen. The low-frequencies were just not being able to get
out as much as the mids were.

As for the high frequencies, they were a bit too much as the sound built up. We tried out Steve Reich's Variations, Six Pianos' and the case remained. However, as the instruments got more and more minimal, the speaker began to g steady definition. With Prince's 'Musicology' we were completely pushed back against the couch because of the bass response. It was pretty damn heavy and that surprised us because just a moment ago that was one of the things we were complaining abo Prince's voice. because of its high frequency richness. was sprinkled with a little too much sparkle.