Typically flat in-room will only happen if it's tilted up in the top octaves on-axis
Most interesting. I had not heard that mentioned before. I have seen people criticize speakers with a slight rise in frequency, above say 10Khz, in anechoic measurments saying they are bright or harsh.
Now, I would think that the nature of the room would have a significant effect on what the final in-room response looked like.
fmw. What I have seen refferred to as warm sound is an enhanced mid range. I have also had at least one person tell me that warm described a flat frequency response.
Ancedotally it does seem that there are a number of people who prefer an enhanced mid range and bass. I get the impression that it is quite easy to develop a bias towards a particular sound signature. In part I think this is because our audio memory is so short, but there must be more to it than that.
I know that I seem to prefer the sound of live recordings. They have a crispness or brightness (used in the originally intended defenition) that I like.