I know the Canadians are flat on-axis, and the British are flat off-axis. What are the consequences of both biases.
I would have described British and Canadian schools the other way -- British school looking at on-axis response (maybe because it pre-dated the Canadian studies ??) and Canadian school arguing that what mattered most was flat on *and* off-axis response :
Click me, click me !! There is some interesting history on Axiom's site as well :
http://www.axiomaudio.com/research.html "And what was even more intriguing: If a speaker’s on-axis (in front) and off-axis frequency-response measurements could be kept as similar as possible, especially within a 15-degree "listening window" and especially over the midrange, the speaker would score highly in blind listening tests. While this is an oversimplification of decades of research at the NRC and by individual designers at Axiom and at other firms, it has proven to be extraordinarily predictive. Although no two speakers designed according to the NRC mantra ever sound exactly alike, there is nevertheless a remarkable congruence in what might be called "the Canadian sound," and that is one of openness, transparency, "linearity" (smoothness), and fidelity. -- Alan Lofft "
The other factor which seemed to influence British speaker design was the "BBC dip", from studies which indicated that relatively more people preferred listening to music on systems with a slight reponse dip in the 3-5 khz area.
I'm sure there are a number of other differences (eg. British speaker designers always seemed more concerned about totally eliminating cabinet resonances) but I don't know much about the details there.
