What if there were no more new speaker models?

@helomech 

What about diamond tweeters?

One time I invited the musicians to do a blind comparison test. (I think it was Dylan and his crew.) It was disappointing, the highs were too bright, there was no soundstage and the bass felt flat. I told them my 30 year old speakers sounded better.

@gdaddy1 my $300 Wison club set has performed unbelievable.  Vs others out there spending $5k on a driver.

@emergingsoul wrote:

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.

Agreed on the deficiency of smaller woofers, but subs I actually find to be a necessity that are seemingly embraced more and more, particularly in their distribution with regard to placement and also with regard to stacking them. Both approaches here (i.e.: with the higher number of subs) to some degree alleviate the tendency that subs are arguably and generally (too) small physically. Ideally I would add subs to most any sized main speaker and have the latter high-passed for a more dedicated approach, and not skimp on the physics while we're at it. 

@hilde45 wrote:

... and I’d add, keep people in a consumer mindset and not thinking about concerns that don’t sell products. Mustn’t let that get in the way of "job one."

Good observation, and one I've been keen to address at several junctures; we as consumers shouldn't be too eager, I mean at all with regard to being in on the games of manufacturers and their mechanisms trying to make their products an easier sell and benefit their business in the process. It's a whole subject in itself with the unfortunate entanglement of consumers and manufacturers and what can (and does) ultimately harm our enjoyment of reproduced music. 

@helomech wrote:

Speaker performance mostly comes down to driver and cabinet quality. Get speakers that have SOTA drivers (beryllium, graphene, ribbons, Textreme, Purifi etc.) with a stout cabinet and you can live happily ever after, at least until another substantial technology leap is achieved. An ideal speaker would probably be something like Textreme or graphene woofers with beryllium tweeters and active crossovers in an overbuilt cabinet similar to what Rockport makes.

A dome tweeter is still a dome tweeter no matter the (expensive) diaphragm material, with all that entails. Personally I find different driver designs like ribbons, AMT's, planar magnetics and a range of compression drivers with horns/waveguides to be the better sounding alternatives, also in adding more bandwidth downwards for a simpler design approach, as well as higher efficiency and way more headroom.

I've heard and used dedicated high eff. super tweeters from JBL that saw the light of day over 50 years ago while sounding great today. The planar magnetic MF/HF driver design in my active speakers goes back 40 years (longer even in what originated from Philips), and they do things sonically that any dome tweeter can't equal. Purifi drivers are well designed, but I fail to see how they excel compared to, say, ATC drivers that are basically the same since the 1980's. What have the last quite a few decades really given us in sonic advancement here? 

I tend to prefer what are basically 2-way main speaker designs that are sub-augmented (and sometimes HF-augmented above ~10kHz, if needed). This also opens up the opportunity to use larger and more efficient woofer/mids that are crossed in the 500-1kHz range to above mentioned varieties of MF/HF drivers covering the remaining frequency span upwards with only one crossover in most of the audible range. 

Fully agree on active configuration; to a degree on the need for über stout cabinets. 

@phusis 

I’ve heard and used dedicated high eff. super tweeters from JBL that saw the light of day over 50 years ago while sounding great today. The planar magnetic MF/HF driver design in my active speakers goes back 40 years (longer even in what originated from Philips), and they do things sonically that any dome tweeter can’t equal. Purifi drivers are well designed, but I fail to see how they excel compared to, say, ATC drivers that are basically the same since the 1980’s. What have the last quite a few decades really given us in sonic advancement here? 

The disadvantage to many ribbon and AMT tweeters is narrow bandwidth and/or wonky vertical dispersion. That, and they can be very fragile (especially ribbons). I agree that SOME AMTs and Ribbons can be superior to a beryllium dome, IF they are very good ones, such as those from RAAL or Mundorf. Regarding planar tweeters, I don’t find that to be the case. They can sound smoother than a hard dome, but I’ve yet to encounter one that can match a beryllium or diamond dome in air and detail, including the Børresen tweeters, which are based on the old Philips design. The expensive Børresen models do get close to a RAAL, but in a quick succession A/B it can be substantially apparent that the RAALs offer greater resolution. Speakers employing the best hard domes or ribbons don’t typically need a super tweeter IMO. Super tweeters tend to be most effective when augmenting mediocre soft/hard domes.

I generally don’t care much for soft domes, but since you brought up bandwidth, I figure it’s worth mentioning this particular tweeter which gets close to beryllium in subjective performance but is also wide bandwidth: 

https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/seas-soft-dome-tweeters/seas-excel-t35c-002-35mm-mid-tweeter/

Regarding woofers, I believe ATC’s are not quite as low in distortion as Purifi and the likes of Scanspeak Illuminator or SB Satori. Subjectively, I like the active ATCs but they are too expensive IMO, considering one can build a passive speaker that’s as good or nearly as good for much less coin.

As for horns, I generally find them shouty, almost regardless of model. The one notable exception is the JBL 4367. I don’t like how they image in most cases either.