How different do great orchestras really sound from one another in the 21st century?

If you closed your eyes and opened your ears for a blind, Pepsi-challenge-type sound test, could you really identify who was playing — given the high level of musicianship at top ensembles, the same core repertoire and the influence of a cadre of jet-setting conductors who shape orchestras all over the world?

Ask musicians about this, and many will lament that a kind of homogeneity has crept into orchestral playing, and that the idiosyncrasies that once distinguished ensembles have faded. They will often exempt their own orchestras from this critique and then point to a handful of others that retain distinctive, recognizable styles. Those shortlists may vary, but one orchestra is almost always mentioned: the Vienna Philharmonic.

The “Vienna sound” has been the subject of reams of music criticism, academic research, acoustical experiments and more than a little debate. Not everyone agrees on precisely what it is — it is sometimes described as plush, warm and rich or sumptuous — but many listeners say that they know it when they hear it. The “specific sound” of the Vienna Philharmonic was cited this year when it won the $1 million Birgit Nilsson Prize, the largest in the classical music world. And when it won this year’s Herbert von Karajan Prize, the orchestra was praised for managing “to preserve its unique sound like no other.”