Best Audio-Manufacturing Countries?

This should be an interesting thread. At first, I thought this is easy. It's the US. To a large degree I still believe that to be true (particularly since I love vinyl--you'll understand that comment in a moment). The two countries that have had the most significant impact in the production of high-end have been the Belgium and Japan. Why these two? These are the headquarters for the digital enterprises of Phillips and Sony. While the advent of digital occurred over 2 decades ago, it's impact has really been in these past two decades. In the high end world consider what percentage of equipment is "digital" in some way or another. More than 3 decades ago that number was basically 0.

Well, I'm sure there are going to be many answers to this. And the question is a little open to interpretation--since my response was really about the impact of development on production and not directly related to the production. For example--China could be a huge impact on production right now. How many high end pieces of gear do you buy that the boards were manufactured and assembled in China? China has made huge strides in doing turn key production of high end sub-assemblies, and they are very cost effective. I'll bet it's a lot more than you might think. So there's another valid answer from a different angle.

Interesting question--I look forward to other's responses on this one.

Oops--you're right. I know why I did that--but I'm not even going to say. Anyway, my response should be corrected appropriately.