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Is there any sophisticated audiophile who could distinguish the difference in sound of high end audio equipment of different countries like USA, Canada, England,Italy, France, German, Japan?
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That's a tall order. To a large extent, your "informed taste" can be a better judge!
I don't make any claim to being sophisticated but I can hear general differences between gear that is characteristic of the cultures of the country of origin.The German stuff like MB Quart uses metal domes tweeters and mids. To me they sound tinny and metalic; very detailed but for me not very musical.
The french stuff from Focal (Wilson audio uses it) is also bright and harsh in regard to tweeters but their other stuff is quite good. The Audax stuff I don't much care for.
I can't think of any Italian drivers but they do provide superb loudspeakers, sucha s the Sonus Faber line--detailed, sophisticated, lean on the bass, refined, and high tech--about what you would expect from the Italians...
The Scandinavian speakers, Skaaning, Dynaudio, Peerless, Seas, Scan-Speak, DAT, have some similar wonderful sound and except for supplier demands they distance themselves from metal tweeters and mids. Mr Skaaning founded 4 companies and one of these has purchased a 5th, so its no surprsie these speakers have similar sonics. (similar company cultures) Seas from Norway has taken a different route to using metal drivers; hand-coated fabric for the tweeters, and metal for the midbass units, to get a very detailed yet unfatiguing sound.
The British speakers like Warfedale, or KEF, and the British electronics like Rega, and Audio Synthesis sound accurate, neat and reserved--again I can't help but hear a 'sound' that reminds me of the culture. Not a bad thing in any case.
The American stuff is all over the place in sonics, a real mixing pot of sounds and sources for components--you guessed it, not unlike Americans.
I would venture similar claim for designers:
When I listen to a Phase Linear, Carver, or Sunfire I hear and see Carver's influence, and when listening to the old Threshold, Nakamichi super amps, some Adcom amps, and the Pass Labs stuff, I hear Nelson Pass's influence. No surprises here.Krell and Thiel build completely different product lines but they have similar design philosophies that IMO leads to similar sounding stuff. Both companies seem to adhere to the philosophy that, "If it measures flat then its what we should do". Although both make excellent equipment, I really don't like the sound of the combination of the two together. I like Thiel speakers if you can find a tube amp that will drive them, and i like the Krell amps if you can find a speaker that is a little reserved--like a Dynaudio speaker. Just don't put the Krell and Thiel together.
a Japanese shakuhachi sounds like a:fiddle on a canadian system
gazoo on a British system
accordian on a German system
rubel on a Russian system
Bagpipe on a Mesopotamian system
sampled fart on an American systemCurious these instruments/movements sound unlike themselves on another countries sytem.
I do not own what should be considered a high-end system nor am I an audiophile and I don't have experience with global systems. Therefore I cannot confirm or deny your statement but there is no doubt IMO components from competing manufacturers have dissimilar sonic flavorings. I often contemplate whether these differences are due primarily to: poor hearing, poor engineering skills, poor imagination, ill-concieved reference systems, or terrific marketing skills? Whichever, our acceptance of this differentiation has nothing to do with the philosophy of "high-end".
To solve the above problems I suggest an electronics manufacturers competition once a year where a sample is selected to audition their complete sytems (cd player, preamp, amp). All manufacturers selected have to agree use of one pair of speakers for all but have no say in the pygmy listening group. Principals of all the manufacturers must be present. Step 1: shoot those who refuse invitation Step 2: record a piano in the auditioning environment. Step 3: playback the recording on all systems. Step 4: Shoot those who's system does not influence the listening panel similarly as the reference. Step 5: If all manufacturers reps are dead at the end of auditioning shoot the speaker maker and the recording engineer and offer pigmies lifetime stereophile subscription.
:-( :-)
Today...with drive units sourced from all over the globe, and with speaker technology being identical (no matter which continent the speaker is assembled on), I'd say it's getting more and more difficult to identify any regional speaker sounds.The exception to this rule may be bass voicing, which is tied in many ways to the type of room in which the speaker is meant to be used. North American market speakers are designed to works in (relatively) large rooms of wood-frame and dry-wall construction. This type of construction sucks out bass, so these speakers are designed to put more bass energy into the room (to compensate). Non-North American market speakers are optimized to work in very different conditions; in (relatively) smaller rooms featuring brick, stone, or concrete construction. This type of construction boosts bass and speakers voiced for this market are designed to compensate (by over-damping the bass response).
Putting a N-Am voiced speaker into a non-N-am room can result in bass boom. Putting non-N-am speakers into N-am rooms can result in a weak and anemic bass, but...some people like this. This has encouraged some manufacturers to to offer both types of voicing or the opposite type of voicing (for the intended market). I'd say that it's getting more and more difficult to identify regional voicing.
You hit the nail right on the head !
years ago I purchased some Cabasse speakers at the Las Vegas show from Georges Cabasse himself before they had an importer.
They had almost zero bass in my Seattle Basement room.however, in the tiny Las Vegas hotel room , playing master tapes of piano and string bass, they were fine ?
I'm confuse, what you experimented is the opposite of what layman said... The Cabasse should had better bass on your basement than in the tiny Las Vegas hotel room! So, it's probably more due to speaker positionning what you experimented in both room.What Layman said let me think of why Audio Physics (they are German) puts the speakers in the middle of the room (to reduce bass response).
Audio Physics speaker positionning seems to work well in european environments whereas Cardas in north-american rooms.
Check these countries, what music they listen to...this will help you understand. Some may even say, check what they drink,eat...
.
...gonna sip a "La Chouffe"
I know what you mean. :)I drink, just don't know if Indian pale ale came from India.
... India Pale Ale was developed during the days of British occupation of the Indian sub-continent. Pale Ale that was made in British breweries was shipped by sea to India, but the heat and the long journey time caused the beer to spoil easily. To solve this problem, a new recipe that involved a higher strenght and more hops was created that allowed the beer to ferment and mature in the barrel as it was shipped. The more robust beer did a better job of surviving the journey and thus India Pale Ale was born...
Same as equipment. Like Naim vs ML or Krell, Linn vs VPI, completely different sound. If speaker manufacturer use those equipment as reference, they differently voice their speaker to different sound.
USA -- Full Range sound Theil alive Vandersteen easy Magie Big
Canada -- Good Bang 4 buck sound has wallop ,
England -- less low end but superb bass tunefull & mid
timing, polite treble.
Italy -- Romantic warm space sound.
France -- Lean fast bass slam slightly pulled back mids
airy highs sometimes with an edge.
German -- Bright metal hot sound.
Japan -- slight mechanical nature less low bass and bright clear 2D
Japanese stuff has mostly sounded bright to me.
French is fast and lean sound.
Canadian has boomy bass (or other country's bass is lean depending on your perspective).
English just like you said but the "toe tapping" preference is maybe a cultural thing. Take What HiFi?'s review on Vienna Hayden's. They gave them 3 stars out of five because they lack the "boogie factor".The more international companies like B&W and JM Labs seem to not have any particular national sound.
people's origin by their accent speaking english or you can know when you speak with a complete idiot just paying attention to the words he uses ;-))Now seriously, there are certain brands that have or tend to have a kind of sonic signature on their gear, UK speakers specially (I suppose you ask this because of previous threads) have some features in common, not B&W, which is a large multinational company and forgot its roots, but others like KEF, Tannoy, Mission, Spendor... use to make their speakers a bit laid back, very flat response, shorts of bass slam and a bit rolled off on highs so they sound more like music on large halls when you are sitting on the rear rows, a kind of response that mixed with tube amping delivers a very musical and long term satisfying sound. This is a silly generalization and all those brands have very good speakers with different responses, but that is the concept that many of us have about British speakers.
30 and more years ago, there were sonic differences between loudspeaker systems made in various places. Perhaps most apparent with Japanese speaker systems, made originally for Japanese listening tastes, and they were quite different from the more linear sound preferred say in Europe.
During the 70s, there was a distinct difference between the 'East Coast'/Boston/New England sound that emphasized flatter response suited to classical music, and the 'West Coast' sound that tended to have a bigger bass/midbass sound. Great for PAR-TAYS!! Now, the better 'West Coast' sound speaker systems could be excellent reproducers, and not prove too fatiguing over hours of loud listening. JBL would exemplify that group. Cheaper makes, often short-lived or 'house' brands, got y'all hooked in the shop, "see, wow, that baby cranks" but ugh, after a while boo-hoo.
I do believe that the more accurate, East Coast sound has come to predominate, a sound similar to the English/European sound.
Then there were the clinically flat, dead-on accurate Yamaha monitors of the 70s. The Tandberg monitors. They are great great sounding speakers, but not if you *don't* want accuracy to the n-th degree!Oh, yeah, American makes probably handle high power for higher SPLs better than the European models. I know I like to get that visceral, gut-pounding sound now and then, y'know, crack the plaster loud? ;-)
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