Yep, the Focals (indeed, nice speakers), are NEAR FIELD monitors. And as the word suggests, they are meant to be close to your ears. Closer means less problems with all kinds of room acoustics as you will be listening to the first, unreflected sound mostly (oversimplification, but that’s a forum for you 😀 ).
As they are “front-ported” speakers, meaning the bass reflex opening(s) are on the front rather than the back, means they are less prone to have problems with rear low end reflections come from the walls behind your speakers.
General rule of thumb (this is from the best-practice sound engineering “handbook”) for placement of monitor speakers:
1) Imagine a triangle where one point is your head and the two other points your speakers. The distances between all three points should be EQUAL.
2) I prefer heavy stands that limit the amount of transfer of sound through them, you can indeed put them on anything as Terry stated.
3) High end drivers slightly above your head firing slightly down (i.e. aimed straight at your ears). Using something like the (auralex for example) absorption pads will let you do that, they come in a slanted design.
Follow these rules and it will sound pretty decent from the get go. Personally I sit with my speakers’ back facing a window and have no serious problems.
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