I cannot speak for the older Oval 9 as I have never owned them. However, I have compared them to some other speaker cables.
I recently purchased a pair of the newer Anaylsis Plus Black Mesh Oval 9 and compared them to my lovely award winning Acoustic Zen Satori cable. The Oval 9 are noticeably warmer, richer, and more organic and fleshed out in the midrange than the Satori. Although the Satori have a little more detail, dynamics, and shimmer in the highs and a lovely midrange, on balance in my system, I prefer the richer sounding midrange of the Oval 9 and do not mind giving up a little extra shimmer offered by the Satori for the richer midrange of the new Black Mesh Oval 9.
As a side note, the Satori are warmer than the fast and great sounding Anti-Cable (which are just magnet wire as near as I can tell).
A system consideration is I have Zu Druid speakers which are slightly brighter and faster than many other speakers out there, and the richer sounding Black Mesh Analysis Plus Oval Nine creates a more balanced net sound (considering the effect of all my components) in my system. I feel that someone with warmer associated components may well choose the Zen Satori speaker cable as the best sounding speaker cable because it brings added detail to help balance out those warmer components.
Perhaps the difference of opinion in the sound of the new Black Mesh Oval 9 to the old Purple Oval 9 cable may relate more to the sonic inclination of associated system components and personal preferences in music. No doubt, those who have some brighter associated components than I have, or those who prefer a more lush and thicker perhaps syrupy sounding midrange, may want an even warmer cable than the Black Mesh Oval Nine (which by my ears is nicely balanced and as warm as I want). In my system, those warmer cables that some advocate would probably sound dead and lifeless to me (like some lower rung MIT cable I once owned).
So, I feel from listening that the Analysis Plus Oval 9 Black is a beautifully balanced speaker cable with a hard to find wonderfully rich, natural, organic midrange, stellar bass, and highs which are open sounding yet delicately detailed with no harshness at all. In my system, they render the sound much more musical than I have heard to date. Therefore, for my preference in sound, and to balance out the net sound of my components, I would not want any speaker cable to sound any warmer than they already do with the Analysis Plus Black Mesh Oval 9 in my system.