I think that there are really not that many different types of instrument; the differences are in the details. The details will definitely change the sound, though, but at that point you're looking at culture - a European lute isn't going to sound like a Chinese 三线 (sanxian), and neither will sound like the Caribbean/American banjo or its African antecedents.
Beyond that, you start to get into cultural notions of consonance and dissonance; the European 12-tone scale (in either its diatonic or chromatic mode, and in either its equally-tempered or just-intonation mode) is going to have a different sound from Turkish makams, Indian ragas or Javanese gamelan ꦱ꧀ꦭꦺꦤ꧀ꦢꦿꦺꦴ (slendro). There is a certain mathematical "consistency" to the notion of musical consonance; not every combination of notes will work - but the Bohlen-Pierce scale, which has almost nothing in common with 12-tone scales, still is consonant, though tonally "wrong" to an ear trained to 12-tone.