At three metres, the room is roughly half of what you hear: reflections off walls, ceiling and floor arrive close enough behind the direct sound to blend with it. Speaker choice at that distance is partly room choice.
At one metre, the direct sound dominates. The room mostly stops contributing, and so does most conventional advice.
Small wins
A large cabinet has more internal volume and reaches lower, which matters across a room. Up close, a large cabinet’s drivers are far enough apart that your ears are at different distances from each — the sound changes as you shift in your chair. A four-inch two-way keeps its drivers close enough that this stops happening.
Position matters more than price
Put the tweeters at ear height and aim them at your head. Make the distance between the speakers roughly equal to the distance from each to your head. Keep ten centimetres behind a rear-ported cabinet.
Doing those three things with modest speakers beats doing none of them with expensive ones, at this distance, every time.
