There can be some aspects of speakers, especially larger speakers, that push the listening distance father away.
Here is a very good example of a speaker that specifically requires you to sit some greater distance from it -
DALI OPTICON 8 - A towering floorstanding speaker
Notice it has a bass driver on the Top and the Bottom. With that distance between those bass driver, to get the sound to blend together coherently, you have to be a considerable distance away. If you are too close, you will not hear distinct single point bass, but rather bass from two distinct sources. At a distance, those two distinct source sounds will blend together into one seeming single source.
But because of the design, basically closely spaced 2-way, Monitors do well at close distance, and in general, Studio Monitor tend to have smaller and fewer bass drivers.
There are people who use Active Speaker/Studio Monitors for Home Theater and general music listening. So, they certainly work for that.
On my computer, I currently have two Q Acoustic 3020 bookshelf speakers, and when I'm leaning back in my chair, the speakers are about 40" to 44" from my ear. The speakers are on a Desktop placed 36" center-to-center.
When I am in the Sweet Spot, they sound fine, but if I get up and step out of the Sweet Spot, the sound significantly drops out, even stepping 4 or 5 feet to the side, the sound drops way down. But that is not a failing of the speakers, but rather a characteristic of the near-field listening circumstances. I have had the same speakers on my main stereo system and they had no problem filling the room.
So, in my opinion, it is not so much that a given set of speakers are Near-field speakers, but more so that you are listening in Near-field circumstances.
So, if you are trying not to annoy the neighbors, then near-field listening is likely to accomplish that goal. But under other circumstances the same speakers should be able to fill a room, to a reasonably degree depending on the size of the speaker.
Steve/bluewizard