I use M22's as "near field monitors." They are amazing for that job.
Also, the M22's, in my opinion, are much better for M3's if you were doing studio work because the M22's are unforgiving on poorly recorded material. If it's recorded well, it will sound great on M22's. If it isn't, well it will sound like crap, or not as good as all the other well-recorded stuff.
Yea, I literally sit on top of my HSU STF-2 and maybe 2-3 feet from my axioms. It is a great experience. Sometimes it can get a little fatiguing listening to the M22's at louder volumes so close, mostly because I think your ears (at my sitting level with my office chairs my ears are at the exact same height as the M22' tweeters) will pick up the tweeters before the woofers because they are just a little closer. Sometimes it helps to back up a couple feet for me to really enjoy a song and higher volumes. Other than that, they are GLORIOUS for listening.
Yes, if I had to make a recommendation for placement, do a perfect triangle with the speakers and you. For instance, I am 3 feet away from each of the M22's, so they are 3 feet away from each other.
Also, I don't know if any of you other guys do this, but at that listening distance I use the M22's cabinet design to easily make the listening angles of the M22's the same. Since they cabinet shape has the 2 sides tapering in like so: /_\ (view from top of the M22). I just align the outside side of the M22 so that it is perpendicular to the desk or whatever it is on, do the same for the other M22, and they are angled exactly the same. I find it quite handy especially because my M22's are moved around a lot in my room switching from movie to computer setups.
If you are going to use this in a recording studio, you probably are going to be running the sound from your computer. In which case, I HIGHLY recommend you do not get a sound card and use the analogue output from it. Rather, get a soundcard that has SPDIF (or a digital out) and get a receiver that takes digital (or coaxial) input, and the sound quality will be leaps and bounds better than what the analogue quality would be, especially from certain sound cards.
If you really want to go for a clean audio route, get an external DAC (digital to audio converter) which will plug in to the USB port of your computer and convert the audio to a clean digital signal. They are quite popular among headphone enthusiasts, so you probably will find the better ones and good opinions on some if you looked on those types of websites.
www.headfi.com is a great forum to start.
Good luck!
