This shift was due partly to the fact that as American-style R&B was embraced by a largely white, teenage audience and evolved into rock and roll, sound system owners could no longer depend on a steady stream of the singles they preferred: fast-shuffle boogies and ballads. 


In response to this shift in supply, Jamaican producers introduced to their work some of the original elements of the Jamaican sound: rhythm guitars strumming the offbeat and snare-drum emphasis on the third beat, for example.

As this new musical form became more popular, both Dodd and Reid began to move more seriously into music production. Coxsone Dodd’s production studio became the famous Studio One, while Duke Reid founded Treasure Isle.

As sound systems continued to gain in popularity through the 1960s and 1970s, they became politicized in many instances. Many sound systems, and their owners, were labeled as supporters of a particular political party (such as the PNP or the JLP), but most of the sound systems tried to maintain political neutrality.

Nevertheless, as a cultural and economic phenomenon, the sound system was affected by the vast socio-political changes taking place in Jamaica at this time.
The culture of the Sound System was brought to the UK with the mass immigration of Jamaicans in the 1960s and 70’s. 


Notable UK Sound Systems include Jah Shaka, Channel One, Aba Shanti-I, Jah Observer, Iration Steppas, Fatman International and Saxon Studio International. One of the first sound systems in the United States was Downbeat the Ruler, founded in Bronx, New York in the late 1970s.
Article posted by reggae united world wide/taken from wikipedia.