I've always heard one of the cons of pro active monitors for home listening, since they're designed for working on complete dedicated and treated rooms/studios and near-field, are they sound is too directional for home purposes and unpractical. This is, theres a narrow sweet spot and you move a few inches from it and the good sound may go away.
Depending on the specific speaker. A narrow sweet spot is most a function of poor off axis response. A great speaker has smooth transition from on-axis to off-axis.
The JBLs I recommended are directional. Directional does not mean the off axis response is poor, but rather the well, well off axis response is minimal while within a nice window, the off-axis response is smooth. Power response is smooth and flat, directivity is controlled, frequency response is flat, distortion is low.
Horns can have diffraction effects and resonances, but can also help mate a tweeter to a woofer or take away room effects.
On HiFi gear its said this is not much of a problem becouse it sounds generally in a more omnidirectional way than monitors.
Funny, every time I hear about "Hi-Fi gear", it's accompanied by "Make sure the room is treated with acoustic panels"
"hi-fi" speakers are often anything but omnidirectional. They usually have wide dispersion that doesn't even match the on axis response. All that does is color the sound because as soon as that non-matching off axis response bounces off the nearest wall or ceiling it hits your ears and confuses your mind.
That's not to say typical speakers are all bad. Not necessarily. But you have to take what you hear with a grain of salt. Usually, if you need to compromise the WAF of your room because the speakers need this or that, perhaps something else is wrong.
But I really dont know, Im just talking from what I read on other sites, like gearslutz. In fact, one thing I notice is audio recorders or mixing engineers who work with monitors, use to listen music/HT at their homes with HiFi speakers, not monitors.
Great speakers are great speakers, with their own pros and cons.
Poor speakers are poor speakers, with their own cons and few pros.
To pidgeon-hole something is to be closed minded. Go to DIY Audio and look at the guys building public address speakers with compression drivers in 90x60 horns, and 15" midranges.... for low-level living room listening. Others use the most expensive Seas and Scanspeak drivers and make great Hi-Fi style speakers. Others are just insane with line array open baffle dipoles and things like that 8O Until we've actually tried it all I don't we're in any position to really comment on it beyond the theory of "why".
Speakers are very complex. I wish I understood them but I don't. You can't believe everything everyone tells you. There's many ways to skin a cat, and maybe they are ALL wrong! Just remember that even studio engineers are people like you or I. Often they buy monitors that impress them in some facets that have nothing to do with accurate sound reproduction (IE "translating to the speakers in a Honda Civic") or "Finding noise problems in a recording". That doesn't mean all studio monitors are even close to the same. Nor are PA speakers or Hi Fi speakers.
Most "hi fi" boutique speakers are the ones with a narrow sweet spots and poor engineering because they are made to sell to dumb rich people who see a pretty, big box with shiny drivers. Try listening to a Wilson some time.
