It all depends on how much money you want to spend. My favorite active nearfields are the legendary [URL=
http://www.meyersound.com/products/studioseries/hd-1/index.htm]Meyer HD-1[/URL] - they are my homebase, so to say. Dry, direct, extremely accurate, big sound, and I can work for 16 hours on them without any listening fatigue syndrom. And - they are expensive 8-].
Recently, I worked on [URL=http://www.adam-audio.de/frameset/start.htm]Adam Audio's S2A[/URL] studio monitors. Actually, the Beethoven-excerpt in our demo-section was mixed on them. A very open, pleasing, yet detailed sound. Good price, considering the results.
A safe bet are always Genelecs. Not many people love them, but there are also not many people saying that they are bad. The [URL=http://www.genelec.com/products/1030a/1030a.php]1030A[/URL] or the 1031A are very wide-spread products, with a smooth, a little bit "HiFi"-like sound, yet powerfull and straight enough for serious studio-work.
A completely different beast, especially for work in a completely digital environment, is [URL=http://www.dynaudioacoustics.com/Default.asp?Id=319]Dynaudio's Air System[/URL], as they have digital (!) inputs and a built-in DSP. We installed a pair of Air15 in our Symphonic Booth, which was on display at the NAMM during the last week. Dynaudio-speakers have a certain sound you either like or not - very analytic mids, clear but "un-charming" (is this a word?) highs, and precise, but slim bass (this is why we added two subs for a little "boom-factor" in the Symphonic Booth. Not a cheap solution, though.
At the end, all these may be too expensive for you. The small Tannoy seem to be a good deal, and they sound pretty decent. I can't say anything about the M-Audios as I haven't heard them. Another company with respectable bang-for-the-buck is Behringer. The [URL=http://www.behringer.com/02_products/prodindex.cfm?id=B2031&lang=ENG&CFID=394820&CFTOKEN=38326625]Truth monitor series[/URL] are certainly an interesting product.
HTH,
/Dietz -
Vienna Symphonic Library