I am sorry, but i am not able to understand the above. Arent all drums basically the same ie a stretched material, usually hide over a shell of wood and just that the shape and usage changes . So not sure why reproduction of a western drum is different from an india one.
As far as i know, Most drivers are designed scientifically to be flat and not specific for any instruments and hence not sure as to why they would want to make it all weird in the 70-200 Hz which is a very crucial range for mid bass/bass. A Speaker is of course a different matter
From what I know, Illayaraja himself is involved in the mastering of his songs and most studios do use "Western" studios.. eg Angel labs he has used in the UK uses ATC speakers. Not sure what studio he uses in chennai, but in most probability it would be a pro audio
Let me try to explain what was intended (i believe) by
@rajafan
Our Traditional Instrument set, if you narrow down to south india, there will be a handful of them.
Mirudangam, Melam (Chenda, Urumi etc..), certain type of cymbals (similar to high hats, but played via hand), Nathaswaram (similar to trumpet, but with more body and less air), Authentic Bamboo Flute (not piccolos or Altos), Harmonium (similar to any reed based one, but compact enough to be carried around), Veena (Sitar in North and Central India) all of them exhibit one similarity. They sound very human like or very organic in their sound.
This is very unlike a Acoustic Guitar or Drum Kits, Sax / Trumpet, Voila, Pipe organs and Grand Piano. I am talking completely music and not frequencies. of course all the above said instruments can play most of the frequencies in their specific Octaves.
For example; the Different types of Percussion in India including Mirudangams, Melams, Dholak, Tabla, Thavil, Ghatam, all of them primarily operate in the Kick bass region. And almost all above said indian intstrument operate around the Human vocal region. So much that in any classical / folk concert here, the spectrum rarely comes below 100 Hz and goes above 10-12 Khz. This is why most of the traditional instruments can be spelled out or rather voiced out by any one with some background in music. They are called Konnakol (is the art of performing percussion syllables vocally) You could check this -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konnakol
When you compare the variants in Western instrument, they have a far wide range of spectrum. An Acoustic guitar in a lower octave can dig pretty deep and the strums even get very near to lower 70 Hz freq. Similarly a Bass Guitar can operate at level where a subwoofer is a must to get the full experience of music. The Same guitar (Harp variants) can go well into the 16 Khz territory. Some electric version of these instruments extend their range even futher. Same applies for a Trumpet or any variant of this instrument (like clarinet, baritone etc..)
If you take African Music instruments, you ll notice a different pattern. They have a different set of instruments to cater to low, lower mid, mid and upper mid regions but the they kind of echo a distinct pattern.
It is just that different type of cultures coming up with their own set of instrument sets based on silo'ed evolution. Music directors all of the world, explore all types of genres hence will be using whatever suits the need at that point.
Generally, if you look at speakers, most of well known brands do produce linear, efficient speakers that should work for all types of music. But the inherent tone is something very specific to each brand / driver's brand. For example, great singers like SPB, Yesudas never appealed to Hindi audience even thought they were tried in few hindi movies. Similarly some of the great voices in Hindi never made it to Tamil or Telugu industry. I am still in era where ARR is playin Keyboard to Raja's tune. It is post ARR break that lot of people from either side crossed over. Hariharan, Shreya Goshal, Udit Narayan, Shankar Mahadevan etc..
Point is if the same song is sung by two well known personalities, both being equally proficient in music , and both sings the song as intended by the music director, still both will not 'sound' the same. The Tone is such a distinct element. Rajafan believes this essentially applies for instruments also.
