Carlos Alden wrote:

I have a small recording setup in my basement. I don't pretend it's
a home studio for recording other people - just myself for projects
and ideas and the occasional track for my band. I have a Mac iBook,
MOTU 828 MkII, and external fw drive. Workdesk is against a short
wall, and unfortunately, the monitors are too. Great little setup.
My room is small - 8.5' W x 12.5' L x 7.5' H.

So here's my question: Am I correct in thinking that monitors with 8"
woofers are just too damn big for my little space, and that I will get
better clarity and accurate imaging from smaller boxes?

Not necessarily.

The low-frequency acoustics of closed rooms is such that, as the frequency
goes down there is some frequency, dependent on the size, shape and contents
of the room, where a more-or-less 12 dB/octave bass boost commences. This
is one reason why car audio systems often have so much bass - a small tight
room is easier to fill with bass.

Speakers tend to have a 12 dB/octave roll-off below some low frequency. If
you pick the exact right speakers for your room, the 12 dB roll-off due to
the speakers would exactly compensates for the 12 dB/octave bass boost of
the room, and you would have ideally flat response. And, if I win the
lottery I would be a rich man!

Regrettably, in this day and age you can't pick the bass roll-off point of
speakers just by looking at diaphragm size or spec sheets. I can probably
find speakers with 8" drivers where the bass cutoff point varies by up to
two octaves or perhaps more.

Regrettably, you also don't know the precise frequency where the natural
bass boost of your room cuts in and I don't know how to predict it from just
a set of dimensions. That may be mission impossible.

Rule of thumb is that it is far better to throw away bass response that you
have, than it is to not have enough bass to start with.

Furthermore, it may be possible to tune the bass response of your
room/speaker combination acoustically or electronically. I don't favor
equalizing the midrange of studio monitors, but electronically touching-up a
bass rise of this kind (not standing waves!) can work.

Finally, you just might like a system with a little extra warmth at the
bottom for monitoring and mixing. That would probably be pretty deadly for
mastering, but when you are mastering, you probably want to be referencing
a number of playback systems, not just one.