What if there were no more new speaker models?

@jnovak - I've had the same Sharp microwave for 35 years that I still use today, and it's needed no maintenance, except for the occasional whack on the side to get the turntable moving.... 

Very interesting concept. Here’s a related thought: Are things truly better designed & made than years ago? In some ways yes & some ways no. Is a refrigerator w/ no Freon but electrically efficient ( many now use propane) that dies & winds up in a landfill in less than 10 years truly overall better for  our environment than one w/ Freon but lasts 20 years +? Same could be questioned for lead in gasoline & paint. 
 

If we go back to the 1960’s & had but a few loudspeaker choices & never had any more, we still could all enjoy listening to reproduced music at home today. Altec A7, original Quads or the AR 3A powered by a Mac, Marantz or HK etc amp w/ a Thorens, Dual, AR etc turntables w/ a Shurej V15 cartridge covered a lot of ground for a wide variety of tastes. 

do newer speakers have a longer shelf life. The soft material on the drivers from the 1970s degraded. I'm not sure what the current model speakers offer in the way of degradation issues around the drivers. I've lost some really nice speakers from the 1970s because of the driver degradation where that circular spongy thing decayed.

@emergingsoul wrote:

if they stopped introducing newer models, would they still continue to produce existing speaker models or would all the speaker companies go out of business?

What does "new" mean anyway in this context? I mean, basically it’s what most manufacturers in the domestic arena do already - i.e.: using what’s been around for decades - while calling it "new models." It’s the emperors new clothes all over again. The trick in the midst of this regurgitation is mostly about business accommodation, market competition and to keep people buying your stuff. 

They must continue to advance what they do otherwise they have no future, sort of like the need for technology advancements.

All the "LEGO pieces" are at hand as is; it’s about how we combine them (and indeed, start finding the pieces as well as assemblies we’ve all but forgotten about) and use a wider palette than what’s dictated by the conservative and obstinate use of passive and evermore ridiculously expensive speakers predominantly. Not to mention people’s need for ever smaller speakers and how, very obviously, manufacturers cater to that and all the while throw physics by the wayside. 

It’s not to say there couldn’t be innovations ahead we’d miss out on, but the more pressing question is whether audiophilia with its inertia of dogma and conservatism  would ever adopt them in a prevalent fashion to begin with? Why even bother?

The most interesting innovations in speaker development are coming from the pro sector, and it has been so for decades. From my chair and with a select offering they are both better sounding, more robust, physically much more capable, cheaper, more plain/industrial looking and, yes, bigger. 

@hilde45 --

+1

@phusis 

I've always had a problem with smaller speakers especially the size of the bass drivers. In order to get bass drivers anywhere near what they used to be closer to eight or so inches you have to pay substantially more at the higher end manufacturers line of speakers. It's absolutely ridiculous. Smaller bass drivers like this don't do as good job. Smaller main speakers took a greater foothold in the marketplace like 20 years ago and that was the dawn of the subwoofer movement that are now necessary because the bass drivers are too small. A brilliant move by the manufacturers to expand offerings.