Speaker Technology over the last 10 years

I collect vintage drivers and other kit. Sure some of it sounds good and designs are very interesting. But what I listed is what I find has made the most improvement. I still listen to a moded Altec in my office its good not great but fun and drivers of interest to me. But the only vintage I find equal to modern is comp drivers and few woofers. Some of the vintage cabinet designs are useful today with improvments. And you might be right about a large corpration realy caring about audio design? Except Fostex SEAS PIONEER etc so maybe a few are still at it;)

Back to the original question:

For better or worse, there's been one giant change:

Digital/x-overs and (sometimes) room correction.

All of the DEQX enabled room corrected stuff (Salk, Selah, etc.) and the non-
room corrected DEQX (Salagar, NHT Xd -already discontinued) and the
emerging Lyngdorf entries (Lyngdor, Bosendorfer - now called something
else, etc), as well as the Behringer powered models (Emerald Physics).

You also see Audyssey and similar systems; both full-range pre/pros and
bass only units(for subwoofers).

You may or may not approve of the approach, but this represents a
fundamental change in technology of the sort the OP inquired about.

Marty

Revrob-what electonics are you driving your speakers with,your source,how big is your room, and what what type of music do you like to listen to?

Rleff,

I have a Cary 306/200 CD player and a Moon Audio Integrated similar to the LSA integrated amp. My room is 12 x 15.

It really depends on the company, how active they are in R&D, and what they decide to do about it.

Case in point are my Mirage speakers. I bought a pair of M5si's in 1996, at the end of that product run. I still use them in the 7.1 home theater system. Last summer I bought a pair of Mirage OMD-15s for the 2-channel system in the living room.

Soundwise, the OMD-15 betters the M5si in every way:
o Airier, more extended treble
o Higher resolution--better nuance and low-level detail
o More omnidirectional dispersion pattern
o More transparent midrange
o Much clearer bass with equal extension (the M-series bass was formidable)

Yet the new design is much easier to own as well:
o Adjusted for inflation, it costs less
o Enclosure has curved walls, improving cabinet inertness
o Smaller tweeter improves speed and dispersion
o Mirage's patented ribbed elliptical surround enables better bass clarity, extension, and dynamics from a smaller driver (5.5")
o M5si was a 51"x14"x8" 85-lb. monolith; OMD-15 is 41"x8"x12" very stylish "lifestyle" column weighing 36 lbs.--Infinitely higher WAF and blends in much better with living space.
o OMD-15 is about 7dB more sensitive: M5si needed 150 highly damped watts bi-wired with $1200 worth of cable or more to come alive. I power the OMD-15 with an 85wpc Onkyo integrated with a damping factor of 25. The OMD-15 has better dynamic range at both ends, more clarity and transparency, cleaner, tighter bass, and more resolution overall.

In the last 10 years we've seen increasing use of neodymium magnets, curved-wall cabinets, drivers made of diamond, titanium, ceramic, and beryllium, more inert cabinet materials such as birch laminate from Europe, etc.

Even Cerwin-Vega has improved to the point that their CLS-215 has received favorable reviews from Absolute Sound and Soundstage.

So in many cases, you can get a speaker today that can do things a speaker in that price bracket from 10 years ago could not.