Canada

Canadian loudspeaker design was shaped by a public laboratory rather than a private workshop. From the 1970s the National Research Council in Ottawa put its anechoic chamber and its double-blind listening room at the disposal of local manufacturers, and the research that came out of it — that listeners consistently prefer a flat on-axis response with smooth, evenly decaying off-axis behaviour — became the house style of a whole national industry. Canadian speakers still tend to be measured first and voiced second.