Is there an ethnic, regional, or geographic sound?

During the 70s and 80s it was true, I think.

The American sound was bassheavy, the German was concentrated more to the topend, and the British lived in the mids.
With the global market, things changed. The sound has gotten similar.

What not changed is, that most of the big loudspeakers still come from the States, possibly because of the bigger livingrooms.

Andreas

andi said:

During the 70s and 80s it was true, I think.

The American sound was bassheavy, the German was concentrated more to the topend, and the British lived in the mids.
With the global market, things changed. The sound has gotten similar.

What not changed is, that most of the big loudspeakers still come from the States, possibly because of the bigger livingrooms.

Andreas

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And there was a East Coast/West Coast "sound" in the US. Was characterized by HP as the ying/yan and tended to brighter, more detailed and thinner (West Coast) and warmer and mellower (East coast). Think most of that has disappeared but still exist to a certain extent.

Absolutely JBL designs speakers for the Asian market that are voiced differently than products sold here.

Rob

Robh3606 said:

Absolutely JBL designs speakers for the Asian market that are voiced differently than products sold here.

Rob

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The thing i always found ironic, at least re Japan, was that despite what i understand to be very limited space/smallish rooms by US standards, the japanese love GIANT horn systems. Gotta love it!

I think that there's definitely a regional sound. Just listen to the newscasters (especially the female ones) from around the world. There is definitely a preference (I cannot imagine that it's a coincidence) as the "better" ones all tend to sound the same. The ones on all the channels of TV in the Pacific Northwest, East Coast, South, Mid West, all sound different. For even more difference (even if you can't understand the language) contrast the voices of the newscasters from Korea with Hong Kong or Japan with Singapore/Malaysia or Sweden with Italy. Definitely very different again. Within the region, there is more commonality and it changes from North to South, and from East to West.

whart said:

The thing i always found ironic, at least re Japan, was that despite what i understand to be very limited space/smallish rooms by US standards, the japanese love GIANT horn systems. Gotta love it!

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small space + directivity = good

For sure there's some differences when comparing tastes (artistically speaking) in music. And I don't speak about high profile jazz or classical music (which may be more homogeneous around the world) but about pop, rock, dance and so on. I've already found huge differences in music played in bars or clubs when I compare NYC to my old town in Italy.

There is also someone stating that, accordingly, even the gear is conceived to sound differently. Reading Italian audio magazine, it was not unfrequent to read about British sound, American sound, Teutonic sound... and IMHO this was mostly due to bias, such as the British sound is euphonic or the German is cold.
Over the years, I've actually also found the the look per se of the electronics was inducing a bias on the expectations on performance. Examples, Naim sounding traditional and analog, Burmester and Spectral being cold... but the very very best is CJ or Accuphase sounding with a shade of gold