Are advances in technology making speakers better?

@phusis , knock yourself out phusis.

@holmz , It is a nice problem to have. There is no amount of coloration that is acceptable. The problem for most audiophiles is that they can't avoid it. Some of them like phusis even glorify it, make it not only pleasurable, but necessary. 

@Phusis, if you think those speakers image you have never heard the image of a current state of the art system. Experience is the best teacher. Next, what do you know about CAD when it comes to speakers? Do you actually design speakers? Back in the 60's speaker designers and builders could never afford the computers used in Apollo mission. They cost in the millions. There were no PCs and no CAD programs for speaker design. All they did back them was shove any efficient drivers they could come up in and a box they would fit in with a simple crossover and paint them black.  The most thoughtful designer back then was Paul Klipsch and he even made several mistakes in design that would not be made today by state of the art builders. I remember hearing a home JBL system with that slotted horn they used and it was pretty impressive. I was 16 years old. Whatever, not one of those old speakers could remotely compete with modern speakers. 

There are speakers that are more accurate than others. "Sounding better" is a subjective opinion by an individual who may or may not have any idea what they are listening to. Accurate is not subjective, it is just hard to define in the case of loudspeakers. There are characteristics accurate loudspeakers always have that can be measured, but unfortunately, they do not guarantee accuracy. Accuracy also depends on the recording. Studio recordings are never accurate. They are sonic images painted by recording engineers and as such qualify as art. Live recordings, on the other hand, can be very accurate but it also depends on the recording engineer's skill at maintaining that accuracy. I always try to find live recordings from a concert series I attended and have my favorites to use making that analysis for myself. An example would be Cecile McLorin Salvant's Dreams and Daggers. The sonics are very close to What I heard at the Blue Note in NYC as far as my hearing memory can determine. Great live recording. An accurate system has to be able to match the energy and size of a live performance. It is the rare system that can do that. As a rule this can not be done without subwoofers. Subwoofer drivers did not exist in the 60s. They came along in the late 70's and the drivers did not really reach maturity until the 2000's. Unfortunately, in many systems subwoofers do more damage than good. I wrestled with them for two decades before getting them to perform at the level were they caused no interference with the midrange and handled the bass up to 100 Hz. This is why the manufacturers of many subs tell you to set the sub to 40 Hz. Down there all they are usually pumping out are record warps. With just a low pass filter they are doing nothing to help clean up the main speakers. 

@holmz , the technology was the same a century ago but speakers had different requirements. Given the state of amplifier development, efficiency was a very important issue if you wanted to fill a whole theater with sound. Now we have CAD tech to help us design loudspeakers. Back then it was slide rules. I appreciate old loudspeakers for what they are, speakers designed with different priorities. As a group they tend to be very efficient and very colored which phusis obviously likes. Coloration in the older speakers interferes with the generation of a decent image. phusis will now tell you that his speakers image fine. They do not because they can't. It is like asking a bus to fly. Buses and airplanes are transportation but have vastly different capabilities. Yes, I have listened to a bunch of ancient loudspeakers from Altec, EV and JBL. I like the old Bozaks the best:-) 

@phusis , by all means enjoy your EVs. 

@cd318 , speakers that leave a colorful first impression are exactly that, colored. I fondly remember my father's Bozak B307As. Driven by a Dynakit Stereo 70 they were glorious, gloriously bass heavy. But, they beat the tar out of my Zenith portable. He didn't know it but I spent a lot more time listening to his system then mine. They were colored and did not image probably because they were too far apart. I did not know much about imaging back then. I was just impressed as all get out when Hendix's guitar went back and forth. Back then it was more important that speakers be efficient as 60 watts/ch was the best you could hope for until Crown and Bob Carver came along with some of the worst sounding amps ever although the Fuzz Linear was much better than the Crown. Back then we all wanted K Horns. The big theater systems were never intended for home use and in home environments they SHOUTED at you. Certainly, they grabbed your attention. It is the speaker that does not grab your attention that requires more listening. Interestingly, with modern digital signal processing it might be possible to make some of those old EVs and Altecs sound passible. Did he mention digital? Shoot the bastard!

@phusis ​​@larryi , magnificent? Hardly. They were awful and they still are awful. If you want to wax poetic over an antique speaker try the KLH Model 3. Not great either, but a lot more listenable. 

@moonwatcher you need to listen to a large Advent.

@ghdprentice , I know you are right about high tech workers in general. Loudspeakers are not high tech. Anybody with a table saw can make one. Not necessarily a good one, true.

Manufacturers have to replenish their lines for marketing reasons alone. The technology has not significantly improved or even changed in decades. 

Spend your money only if you are looking at a significant upgrade in performance, otherwise keep saving your money until you can do so or you will never get there. You should not budge until you can afford to spend at least three times what your current system cost and even then you have to be very careful not to make a sideways move.