Studio monitors and hi-fi speakers can be the same thing, or they can be radically different. In truth, home hifi speakers at the cheap to mid level price tend to have er, accentuated tone - as in they're designed to sound better than they are by using tricks. If the home listener is into certain sorts of music, they want thuddy bass and a sizzle from the hi-hats. So the speaker that makes these two features sound good gets recommended to these users by the you tubers, magazines and specialist social networks. Same thing for the speakers wedding DJs love. Those speakers that sound quite nice early in the evening when things are quiet, but can develop into gut churning distorted messes that can take your head off at ten paces after 10PM. Studio monitors are designed to reveal defects, and allow decision making. The dance music and wedding DJs would hate the sound. I'm still using some expensive Celestion speakers I bought in the 80s that I got cheap because they were very neutral and remained unsold on the shelves. Sound on Sound magazine recommended them for recording, so I bought a pair and I know them really well. Mike B mentioned the room being important. I had a change around in my studio and while trying things out tried my speakers in the middle of the room (9x3m facing towards the end - I put the desk and the keyboards etc in the middle of the room - bizarre really and accidentally found everything sounded better than the usual speakers near the walls layout. Very odd, but it really worked, so I moved everything, buried cables under the floor and I'm keeping the layout because my nice speakers work better in the open. With studios, it's always the combination of everything that is vital. I remember making a music video once on a hillside. The guy strumming a guitar, miming to a track - but we recorded him - the guitar and his real vocal. Great guitar, decent mics but outside the lack of any room made the entire thing dead and lifeless.
