There are a lot of posts talking about the "near" field when in fact I think that they mean the direct field. The direct field is when one is close enough to the source that the reverberant field is negligable. This is different than the near field. The near field is when you are so close to the source that the sound does not drop with distance as it does in the direct field. In fact the near field can be very complex with nulls and peaks at different points and at different frequencies. Generally the near field is to be avoided. The near field is hard to define without mathematics so thats why its definition seems nebulus. With math its quite precise.

When one is in the direct field the imaging is precise because the early reflections of the room are surpressed - more initial, direct, sound. Array have high directivity so the direct field extends further out than it does for a small source - where the direct field is very small. Thus the array will almost always have a higher direct to reverberant ratio. BUT, one can move close enough to any source to get this same ratio.

I think that this is what you were perceiving.