I would recommend heading down to Guitar Center or another shop in your area and check the new Adam F series. I just got done buying new ones and auditioned Adams, KRKs and some others. I ended up going with the Adam A7X, but almost down-graded to the F series because they were so good for the price. The F5's are $500/pr. They have good bass for their size and their high end clarity is really, really good, without being too bright. If you need more bass, you could always add a sub-woofer later. http://www.musiciansfrien...powered-studio-monitor http://www.adam-audio.com...roducts/f5/description The KRK Rokits are also good speakers for the price. So get to a store and listen and see what works for you. I would recommend taking some music with you on a stick, an iPod or something so you can compare with music you know well and is representative of what you will be listening to. Happy hunting.

I've just bough Adam ARTist5, which should be about the same as ADAM A5X but with glossy finish, build in DAC (if you want to...). 
Musicians Friend had them for 349$/each for a stupid deal of the day :)

i have nothing to compare them to, since they are also my first monitors (just used my DT-770 headphones)
But after about one week (!!) of burning in with Fourplay and other fine, smooth music it has really started to open up and sound really nice and tight. 

PS: the ARTist 5 has rear bassreflex ports, so you'll have to have this in mind. For me it is not a problem - but it demands a bit more from you for the placement. 

Small speakers won't let you hear what is going down in the bass dept.  In your situation I'd have a pair of big speakers tied in to your system so I could check my music out there.  Those don't have to be expensive, just bigger woofers.

As far as what to put in your studio room, my solution would be the yama's mps5s.  Those should give you a critical idea of the mix - sans bass.  I've used them in big studios as the near fields.  The Equitors have an outstanding reputation for new speakers.  If you could double your budget you could get the Pelonis near fields and add their sub later when you have a bigger room.  That is pretty much no compromise monitoring.

@

At most decent music stores there will be a number of pairs set up with a switching matrix to allow you to compare them side by side. Please take the time to do this. 

Also carry a CD that reflects the style of music you will be doing and preferably a CD that you know well from an acoustic standpoint. 

While most studio reference monitors claim to have a "flat frequency response", as you audition the pairs you will quickly discover that they all sound different. My advice is to pick a pair that are in your budget range, and that sound good to your ears and reproduce the music on your CD the best, again, according to your ears. 

Most store allow a 30 or 45 day no fault return policy. With speakers this is something to be aware of and use if needed. Because the speakers may sound totally different in the home than they did in the store. 

Be sure they sound like you want them or expect them to sound in the studio room. Use the reference CD you took to the store.   Once you are satisfied with them at home.........

Then, learn that speaker system.

I see somebody hooked you up with a pair of monitors. That's great. I'm new at all this - I've got a pair of Mackie MR5's. My old drummer, who was a mix engineer had some MR8's, but my budget and the size of my room made the 5's more acceptable to me. (I read alot of reviews of these monitors, too, before I bought.)
I saw a comment about checking out a bunh of monitors to see how they sound in your room, that you might need a sub. I was thinking about this as I set up my mix room and what I decided to do was to play some CD's that I was completely familiar with, and whose production I admired, through my Mackies to get a feel for how they sound with a professional mix, just to give me a reference and get my ear sort of tuned to the monitors and the room.