Cultural Sound

[Florian]

okay then.

#

The topic was a personal question and to me, with the exeption of Tannoy, most british speakers sound warm, wooly and fussy/fuzzy. In other words overcolored and smeared. But this is my personal opinion and i can understand why some sees this the other way or even like the typical sound.

The argument that millions like it, does not do it for me, because i am not a part of the big "soup"

[Woochifer]

While they may be outdated, they are still widely used. John Atkinson, Robert Harley, Michael Fremer, are among those still using terms like these in their write-ups. I'm not saying they are the best source of information, but generally speaking there is still an expectation, if you will, of a particular cultural sound.

And perhaps there is some usefulness to it too. After all, when it comes to the language people use to describe hifi, it's not like a point of reference, however outdated, isn't needed. After all, how the hey does someone describe the a sound as having "air"? Are we talking cool air, stale air, hot air? Or are is actually physical air displacement? Maybe someone should write a dictionary/reference for audio terms, kind of like the hundreds of books on computer terms.

I think this is a good example of people "hearing" what they expect to hear, and letting perceptions linger, even if the reality presents a more diverse picture. Like I said, I'm not sure what defines an "American" sound given that speakers ranging from Magneplanars to Altec VOTs to Dunlavys to Def Techs are American. And the American amps can range from SET amps to Bel Canto digital amps and any variety of SS and tube hybrid designs in between.

The "British sound" label in particular seems outdated, given how companies like B&W and KEF have evolved their design approaches. The B&Ws of today generally sound more similar to Canadian speakers than the vintage B&W speakers that helped define the "British sound."

As another example, some people persist in labeling Yamaha receivers as "bright" sounding and Marantz receivers as "warm." When receivers used analog controls, these descriptions were appropriate and could be verified with measurements (the "zero state" on a Yamaha showed a slight boost in the highs, while the Marantzes had a slight rise in the midrange). But, in my comparisons between more recent digital AV receivers, I did not find noticeable differences between the Yamahas and Marantz models, certainly a lot less significant than what I'd observed with their vintage analog models.

[nightflier]

So I think what I'm reading is that the labels are outdated and most of the gear no longer conforms to the labels of yesteryear. That said, the labels can still apply when speaking in general terms, especially when discussing something as hard to define with words as sound. So there is such a thing as "the British sound" however outdated it may be. With that in mind, what are the typical/traditional attributes of (fill in the blank):

- British Sound:
- Canadian Sound:
- American Sound:
- Japanese Sound:
- German Sound:
- Danish Sound:
- French Sound:
- Down-under Sound:

Those are all the ones that come to mind as having a traditional sound, but add your own, if you think it applies.

[Woochifer]

So I think what I'm reading is that the labels are outdated and most of the gear no longer conforms to the labels of yesteryear. That said, the labels can still apply when speaking in general terms, especially when discussing something as hard to define with words as sound. So there is such a thing as "the British sound" however outdated it may be. With that in mind, what are the typical/traditional attributes of (fill in the blank):

- British Sound:
- Canadian Sound:
- American Sound:
- Japanese Sound:
- German Sound:
- Danish Sound:
- French Sound:
- Down-under Sound:

Those are all the ones that come to mind as having a traditional sound, but add your own, if you think it applies.

Well, that's the thing. Within each of these geographic areas, you'll find a fair amount of diversity, and overall the differences in what you hear have narrowed considerably. Nowadays, you tend not to find a lot of component-based audio systems that are blatantly inaccurate by design. The vintage JBLs for example had large inaccuracies in specific areas, but much of the music could still sound quite good since the music was likely mixed on JBL studio monitors. I think a lot of the stereotypes about what typifies "American" sound lingers from that era when JBL was the dominant speaker manufacturer.

And this perception of what sounds American doesn't even include the New England sound, which also had a very large and dedicated following, and placed much greater emphasis on tonal neutrality.

IMO, the Canadian sound is the most current evolution of the New England sound, and largely typified by the companies spawned from the NRC research like Energy, PSB, and Paradigm. The NRC research laid out the parameters that define consumer preferences -- i.e., flat midrange, low distortion, small off-axis tonal deviations -- and the Canadian companies very successfully used these parameters to spawn an entire industry. Even Polk now cites the NRC findings in its literature, and Boston Acoustics significantly redesigned its entire speaker lineup I think in response to the huge success that the Canadian companies have had. But, even in Canada you have companies like Totem and Reference 3A that have their own design approaches.

The idea of a Danish sound is somewhat humorous because aside from the obvious major player in Dynaudio, Denmark is also where the European market JBLs are manufactured. My understanding though is that the JBLs made in Denmark are audibly different than the ones made in their Northridge plant, so there may be some validity to how tastes vary by region. The question though is whether Danish audio gear is built around a specific set of general characteristics, or if there is a diverse ecosystem of different design approaches like you find in the U.S. And I would pose the same question regarding all of the other regions that you listed.

[thekid]

My guess there was something to the cultural aspect years ago when the manufacturers in a given country actually produced the equipment and competition from outside the country was either non-existent or prohibitively more expensive. A bad analogy would be say McDonalds back in the day when they were really the only fast food franchiser of hamburgers. At the time some might say that is the "american" hamburger because it was a popular with the public and soon spawned a series of imitators who essentially produced a similar tasting product. Weak analogy I know but hopefully you see my point. Anyway with the equipment now produced worldwide (and contrary to what some in the audio world want to acknowledge) there is shared technology and in some cases shared parts between a variety of brands of different nationalities that probably have made these cultural differences less pronounced from the early years of audio.

Equipment aside I did hear something recently regarding the use of bass in early Beatles records. It seems the in Britian the bass levels on many records were purposely reduced because they thought that high levels of bass would cause the needles to jump when the record was played. After hearing several Motown recordings with heavier bass the members of the Beatles found out about the way bass was being handled on their records and had it changed. Maybe some other members here could collaborate that story but it raises the question; Is it the recordings or instrumentation that has an effect on how the culture wants to hear their music and the equipment follows???????