Contemporary ethnomusicology extends beyond the realm of sound art, embodying a dynamic intersection of cultural memory and social practice. Faced with the challenge of exhibiting music as an intangible cultural heritage, museums across the Taiwan Strait adopt distinct curatorial strategies to render “ sound ” visible and experiential. This study focuses on two representative cases: the Resonance of Mountains and Seas: The Permanent Exhibition of Taiwanese Music at the Taiwan Music Institute and the Tradition@Modern: Exhibition of Ethnic Music Culture at the Chinese National Museum of Ethnology. Through a comparative analysis, the paper examines how both institutions engage with the presentation and preservation of indigenous and traditional music within their respective sociocultural contexts. The research addresses three core questions: (1) How can exhibitions “display sound” rather than merely objects related to sound? (2) What cultural logics underlie the music-historical narratives constructed in cross-strait curatorial practices? (3) How do museums balance the auditory experience of music with their educational and interpretive missions? Adopting a multi-dimensional framework, the study compares the two exhibitions in terms of institutional background, curatorial form and objectives, thematic design, technological innovation, interactive engagement, information accessibility, and current status. By investigating both exhibition and collection strategies, this paper elucidates the transformation of ethnomusicological museums from traditional repositories of cultural artifacts to interactive platforms for sensory and cultural communication. Ultimately, the findings contribute to a deeper understanding of how ethnomusic museums mediate between cultural continuity and modern reinterpretation, offering new perspectives for interdisciplinary dialogue between musicology and museology.