I really haven't talked with others with experience using the DSPeaker Anti-Mode X4 in a system where listening is done from the far field. I see no reason why the X4 would not prove equally transparent in such circumstances. I also don't think far-field listening would impair its ability to smooth the measured and subjective frequency response at the listening position, but that's just a guess, not something I have from direct experience or even reports of others.
I have listened in the near field rather consistently in my listening rooms for decades. I encourage everyone to listen near-field. You really don't know what you have, speaker-wise or recording-wise, unless you do. Eight feet or more back you are largely listening to your listening room's small-room acoustics rather than the frequency response or space (real or artificial) actually captured on the recording. Room treatments can reduce that problem, but not nearly as effectively as when one listens near-field.
While you are correct that listening in the near field gives you less of the second venue effect of overlaying your listening room's acoustics on the sound captured in the recording, the gains produced by near-field listening are primarily in the midrange and highs. The room's bass modes are not negated much by near-field listening, at least not until you get to somewhere really close to the speakers, like one meter away or less and even I don't routinely listen that close up.
Part of good system set up is to find spots for the speakers and listener which work well in your particular room with your particular speakers in terms of producing as smooth a bass response, with as little sharp reflections of mids and highs from room surfaces as possible BEFORE applying electronic equalization. Thus, with good set up, the speakers are aimed away from the walls and toward your ears, absorption and/or diffusion is used to treat all room surfaces near the specular reflection points of the speakers as viewed from the listening position, and the distances of speakers and listener from floor, walls, and ceiling are all carefully adjusted. With speakers which, like my Harbeth M40.2s, have inherently quite smooth mids and highs, given such set up, the room treatments basically take care of mid and high frequency problems.
That leaves the bass. Careful positioning of speakers and listener can smooth bass response quite a bit. Still, even with careful positioning of listener and speakers, in many rooms, especially with speakers with generous bass response like the Harbeths, you will still need electronic equalization to smooth the response below 200 - 300 Hz or so, to allow evenly tempered bass lines and elimination of the dreaded "one note bass" problem. And in my experience all electronic equalizers work best in correcting the bass range when they have as little to correct as possible.
Still, as noted in my comments, with the X4, even in my near-field set up allowing the X4 to make very minor corrections above 500 Hz seems to further improve the sound of my M40.2 set up.
I have listened in the near field rather consistently in my listening rooms for decades. I encourage everyone to listen near-field. You really don't know what you have, speaker-wise or recording-wise, unless you do. Eight feet or more back you are largely listening to your listening room's small-room acoustics rather than the frequency response or space (real or artificial) actually captured on the recording. Room treatments can reduce that problem, but not nearly as effectively as when one listens near-field.
While you are correct that listening in the near field gives you less of the second venue effect of overlaying your listening room's acoustics on the sound captured in the recording, the gains produced by near-field listening are primarily in the midrange and highs. The room's bass modes are not negated much by near-field listening, at least not until you get to somewhere really close to the speakers, like one meter away or less and even I don't routinely listen that close up.
Part of good system set up is to find spots for the speakers and listener which work well in your particular room with your particular speakers in terms of producing as smooth a bass response, with as little sharp reflections of mids and highs from room surfaces as possible BEFORE applying electronic equalization. Thus, with good set up, the speakers are aimed away from the walls and toward your ears, absorption and/or diffusion is used to treat all room surfaces near the specular reflection points of the speakers as viewed from the listening position, and the distances of speakers and listener from floor, walls, and ceiling are all carefully adjusted. With speakers which, like my Harbeth M40.2s, have inherently quite smooth mids and highs, given such set up, the room treatments basically take care of mid and high frequency problems.
That leaves the bass. Careful positioning of speakers and listener can smooth bass response quite a bit. Still, even with careful positioning of listener and speakers, in many rooms, especially with speakers with generous bass response like the Harbeths, you will still need electronic equalization to smooth the response below 200 - 300 Hz or so, to allow evenly tempered bass lines and elimination of the dreaded "one note bass" problem. And in my experience all electronic equalizers work best in correcting the bass range when they have as little to correct as possible.
Still, as noted in my comments, with the X4, even in my near-field set up allowing the X4 to make very minor corrections above 500 Hz seems to further improve the sound of my M40.2 set up.
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