I've been an audio nutjob since the 1980s. In the last ~15 years, all the audio that mattered to me had to fit in a 13' x 13' home office. Now I have 2 systems here: the main one is speakers + amp + sub + DAC + 2 headphone amplifiers; side-system is headphones only (2 headphone amps). As you can tell from this paragraph, high end headphones have become a big thing for me.
But I've also had 6 or 7 pairs of speakers, powered & passive, through this system over the years. Along with all the headphones, some consider SOTA/TOTL, I've concluded that what matters most (and always did) is IMPLEMENTATION. That's a combination of ingenious design, careful parts selection, great construction, and listening/listening/listening to one's own product.
Sure certain parts (mainly capacitors, resistors, air chokes, transformers) have reached new theoretical heights. But a bad designer can make a bad speaker out of spectacular parts; and the inverse.
Right now I'm auditioning a headphone mfr's loaner (ZMF Atrium) of a model that will do a wide launch in a week. The owner/designer is gifted: for this headphone he patented a new damping architecture for each earcup, and damned if it doesn't work totally & completely. This sound is spectacular, something completely different.
It's all about IMPLEMENTATION...
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I have owned a lot of speakers over the years and wanted to try something "new" and different and bought the Tekton Double Impact Monitors for $2,200. I absolutely love them. |
They are not real new but ten years ago there was a company called some phase that made an inverted dome speaker where the theater was in the center I have a set they are tonally beautiful. As a point of reference I also have a pair of harbeth slh5 and a set of equation 25 had a pair of maggie 3.3 and a set of kef reference 3 so that may help you know what I like. I have no plans to chance the dome phase speakers nor the other two that I currently own. Regards
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I work with Vandersteen Audio. In the last 25 years Vandersteen has created a line of speakers with powered bass and 11 bands of analog EQ, so they fit int most any room. They have furthered driver technology using a unique sandwich of balsa and carbon fiber that carries a USA patent. They have created an inert carbon fiber box-in-a-box cabinet construction that measure as good as any other box invention to date. Vandersteen extended their "perfect piston" patented technology to tweeters incorporating this into four levels of speakers starting at $10K per pair. Meanwhile, they maintain the original product that put them onto the audio map, the notable Model 2 speaker. This Model 2 is now in its 8th generation of refinement. This is a part of the developments and the constant pursuit of materials and ideas that enhance your emotional involvement with your system. If you want to know more, pick up the phone and call Vandersteen. Richard Vandersteen is on the phone at sharing his enthusiasm for audio, and his over 50 years of knowldege, or come see him on April 7th in San Diego at Stereo Unlimited, and check out the Vandersteen Amplifiers that power the upper part of the speakers. Now that is unique, a high pass amplifier that does not have to power big woofers and is free to run with zero feedback.
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I have found that a lot of speakers are difficult to
listen to for more than it takes for the crystal sound and v deep bass takes to dissipate. At first many Of the high end speakers will dazzle the listener but for extended listening time it falls short .
try Elac or Epos bookshelf and a fraction of the expense but listenable!
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Shearer designs were the 1st time and phase matching designs they also featured pattern control. The W bin many of the early Shearer designs used is still current in pro audio and in theaters. Shearer horns have a near realistic sound quality I have had people walking to my house ask me if I had a band playing. I have never had anyone think a conventional audiophile system sounded like the real thing. To this day I incorporate what they learned during the Shearer horn into modern and up-purposed designs that can do what Shearer does but also what a good audiophile loudspeaker does.
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Hi Jaybird. I had the MA Gold Ref60s in the past. They were excellent for the money. Their sound was clear and engaging. Fairly balanced.
Compare the MA Gold R60 with a Magico S3 or an Evolution Acoustics Micro One, and it becomes clear the MA is not capable of the resolution and balance of those mentioned. Both the above are more open in the midrange especially, and much more resolved across all frequencies. It doesn’t sound like a huge difference, but from someone very familiar with your MAs, believe me, it is a case of ‘night and day’. The Evolution Acoustic Micro one is a small narrow-baffle standmount with two ceramic drivers flanking the centrally mounted tweeter. It is extraordinary for its size. The soundstage and presence for a smaller speaker is breath-taking. The Micro One has slighty less low bass presence than the MA, but is more dynamic, resolving, timbrally and tonally accurate. The Micro One presents a more real-life scale visceral sonic picture, which is is shocking for casual non-audio ‘normies’ because the MA is a ‘full-range’ floorstander. The Micro One cabinets are constructed of baltic birch hardwood. The MA cabinets are constructed of plywood (if I remember correctly) with a veneer. The layered baltic birchwood cabinet of the Micro One is much stiffer and more inert. My son’s Magico S3 V1 are in my humble opinion, a masterpiece of audio engineering. The S3 constructed of ultrastiff and well-damped extruded aluminium monocoque cabinet enclosure with carbon midrange drivers, beryllium tweeters and ultra stiff aluminum cones. The eliptical crossovers, made from the finest components, are also highly innovative.
If you are looking for a speaker to really rock your world, and you have a budget of say 50 Benjamin Franklins give or take one or two kay, look at used pair of Magico S1 or perhaps the new A3. The advancements and execution of those speakers will bring you much closer to audio nirvana than your MA Silvers.plus this will get you state of the art speaker tech.
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There was some talk of plasma speakers, haven't heard anything since. The obvious advantage is almost no mass, hence no mechanical resonance and instantaneous response.
Now that would be a breakthrough in design.
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@johnk
And I keep a Shearer horn around because after all this time we have not bested that design
Which of today’s speakers do you think come closer to that design. What qualities make the Shearer such a stand out to you?
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I design manufacture collect restore all types of loudspeakers I get my hands on the most advanced transducers many times far before they hit the market for consumers. I assist in the development of transducers. And I keep a Shearer horn about because after all this time we have not bested that design and its essence is still with us today. I've had many jaded audio professionals hear the Shearer horns and have to rethink what progress we have really made since the 1930s. If you compare a modern BE dome tower to a Shearer it sounds like a toy compared to it. We lose so much sound quality to convenience don't fool yourself into thinking you have the absolute sound.
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@johnk
In the 1920s-30s, the world's largest corporations used nearly unlimited resources and the best engineers around to design almost all loudspeaker types we use today.
Some from that era are still considered to be wonderful sounding and are highly desired today.
http://www.audioheritage.org/html/profiles/lmco/shearer.htm
https://www.martinlogan.com/en/electrostatic-loudspeaker-history
An excellent post that supports what many of us have been saying.
High performance loudspeakers were already capable of great performance decades and decades ago.
The main area targeted by research nowadays seems to be focused around designs that are considered to be 'domestically acceptable'.
For sure, many of us here are prepared to sacrifice a certain amount of domestic acceptability (if not quite the Shearer Horn) for sonic gain, but evidently the vast majority of loudspeaker buyers are not.
Perhaps therein lies the problem as it's difficult to see how relatively small slim tower speakers can ever sound as good as some of the behemoth designs featured in the 2 websites linked above.
The fact that some of these new designs, despite the size constraints, have even gotten fairly close is a testament towards some of the design breakthroughs we have seen in the last few decades.
Especially when set up carefully in a sympathetic room with a sympathetic system driving them.
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@holmz Good. We agree, then, that "there is new stuff happening." That makes sense to me, too. It’s what others here have said regarding advances in materials in the speaker industry.
Yep - new stuff is happening, and that is a general fact.
However as we move from general fact to specific case.
The new tech is immediate for the more privileged, buying state of the art speakers.
And the for the masses… that trickle down is time delayed.
So the main disagreement is in the specific context of whether the new $2000 version of the OP’s older $600 speakers have any new tech in them.
… If you think the speaker industry has stood still over 20 years, well then go buy some vintage speakers or stay with what you have.
…
How would one be going about knowing whether any of the new tech is in the speakers he mentioned?
This whole thing is like like talking about transportation being improved and pointing to mag-lev trains and Virgin corp tourist space flights as proof.
That may or may not have anything at all to do with the technology of getting back-n-forth to work in a new car, a city bus or tram.
So the technology trickle down is more “hopeful” in the context of the OP’s $2000 speaker… than something factual on a different brand’s $10000 speaker set.
We literally have no idea on these Mission Audio speakers other than their sales pitch, and reviews. Their website is somewhat thin on metrics, so how do we know what is happening and what tech entered into them?
https://www.monitoraudio.com/en/product-ranges/silver-series-7g/silver-200-7g/
Being personally unable to point to any facts, I have to encourage the OP to continue being happy with their existing MA speakers, until they have a way to verify that the new ones are a worthwhile improvement.
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Very interesting fact for me....
I already knows that many type of speakers existed for a long time, but these articles express it clearly... Thanks...
Fort sure there is innovations about all aspects of speakers design each year it is simple to verify...
It is also simple to EXPERIMENT that acooustic of small room make all the difference in the world for ANY speakers type...
Then nevermind your speakers choice the biggest improvement will come from the small room treatment and acoustical mechanical control...Simple to verify if you listen to the same speakers in a room well treated and under mechanical control, before and after, or if you listen the same speakers in any different room...
Why? because the perception of ALL acoustic cues are completed and translated only wheen the interaction between the speakers and the room is coming to your ears/brain in two way because you have 2 ears and by 3 sources: two speakers and the room itself...
Timbre, dynamic, imaging, soundstage,listener envelopment, etc, any acoustic cues result from the speakers/room relation to your ears...No acoustical cues is ACOUSTICALLY contained in the source, the acoustical cues in the source are an analog/digital information about the recorded acoustical original chosen cues who wait to be translated by the relation speakers drivers/room walls and acoustical content....Acoustic experience is not the analog/digital written information, this information need to be physically translated to reach your ears...It is described by two complementary science : physical acoustic and psycho-acoustic...
The digital or analog MAP of waves in an album or cd is not a listened wave coming from a speaker/ room...
You need wood and air to have fire, you need physical translation of wave phenomemon in air to have sound...
What audio call material REPRODUCTION of sound in the analog/digital engineering perspective will be better described as an acoustical TRANSLATION between two environment modulo human ears...
In the 1920s-30s, the world’s largest corporations used nearly unlimited resources and the best engineers around to design almost all loudspeaker types we use today. Some from that era are still considered to be wonderful sounding and are highly desired today. http://www.audioheritage.org/html/profiles/lmco/shearer.htm https://www.martinlogan.com/en/electrostatic-loudspeaker-history
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Would be nice to know your budget. If you think the speaker industry has stood still over 20 years, well then go buy some vintage speakers or stay with what you have. Ignorance is bliss. That said, there have been meaningful developments in design, crossovers, drivers, and cabinets. Just a couple examples, I agree with a prior post about Spatial and would add Boenicke. Even If you’re serious you should travel to a show or two or to go to some dealers for speakers you’re interested in. If you’re serious about this, IMHO it’s well worth the effort/expense, and FUN. Best of luck.
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@holmz Good. We agree, then, that "there is new stuff happening." That makes sense to me, too. It's what others here have said regarding advances in materials in the speaker industry.
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I am unable to evaluate speakers by reading some measures and i dont think what is published in the official specs is anyway all that matter...
Many great speakers were made in the past 50 years...I owned Tannoy dual concentric gold speakers and they can rival many other box speakers of today...Or even magneplanar BUT IN THE RIGHT ACOUSTICAL CONTROLLED ROOM...I know because i prefer my Mission in my dedicated room which are less sophisticated than my Tannoy to big magnepan in a bad room which i listened to with a friend...An no question that big magnepan in a dedicated room are top, even over the Tannoy probably...
Speakers is one thing, but people must not forget the room importance...Speakers EXIST in their room, not on a specs sheet or in a reviewer room... 😁😊 A room must be dedicated to a speaker and acoustically treated and specifically controlled for it only...it is what i learned how to do in the last 2 years and this is not very well known in audio circle by the way....
Not surprizing because it is complex and impossible to do in a living room...And it takes me months for the mechanical tuning non stop ...I am retired... 😁😊 But trust me for any speakers there will be no relation between the sound quality BEFORE and AFTER the mechanical control in place ... Passive material treatment is good but not enough...
Acoustic is NO LESS important than even speakers design...For now....
I choose my actual speakers Mission Cyrus 781 because they were a deal at 50 bucks and anyway the top of the Mission brand....
No doubts in my mind because speakers are very complex and of various type and materials there is always continuous innovation around the world... But the time between an innovation and the necessary publicity to make them well known is calculated in years not in months...
Then i am sure that there exist many revolutionary design unknown of most of us all around the world in small companies..,They come and they go...But they can stay a legendary well designed product at relatively low cost and be replaced in the public favor by other good products...
Think about the SPICA speakers... Who remember them now?
i am sure they are not less good now like in the years 80 where they were very well reviewed...I look for some before the Mission Cyrus deal i take.... 😁😊
To be frank i dream to buy one pair some day, not to upgrade because i am satisfied with the Mission Cyrus but now i know how to dedicate a room acoustically around any type of speakers, i want to try a new type of speakers and dress the room for them....A kind of acoustical challenge...
https://spicaspeakers.com/specifications/spica-reviews.php
Anyway i will not upgrade my Mission speakers.... It will be mission impossible because of the high price i will pay for upgrading this 30 years design with a wonderful bass...And cabinet design well done for sure...
With heavy damping and 2 set of springs on each one of them i am in heaven...
I am anyway very curious about new technology for speakers and i dont doubt that some new technology exist already unknown to us....Anyway we must listen to a speaker to evaluate it... A new technology CANNOT be known by many people in his first years.....Except for very well known design with ton of reviewers like Tannoy or Mission which we can buy without listening them before like i did with total confidence......By the way it is me who redacted this short impression of the Mission which was confirmed by another audiophile... 😁😊 Take it with a grain of salt, reviews means something in great numbers...And even if positive can put you on a bad track anyway....
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@hilde45 I am not an expert, it is just my perspective.
So yeah there is new stuff happening. Just it is not happening at $2000/pair.
(IMO)
Or it is limited to a bit here and a bit there.
My 35 year old speaker were great in the 80s. And they are still pretty good.
To get really very good speakers is usually going to bring someone into the $5000+ range. (IMO)
But then how do we define good, really good, great, and exceptional?
We need a way to do it.
I have offered my opinion that distortion, compression, directivity, impulse response and step response as metrics which can offer us some insight. Unless we have those metrics we can only imagine.
So I, like you, also do not know how to judge statements (nor how to judge subjective descriptions).
Unless a particular speaker has addressed some component of the above list then I can only guess that they made a change that may or may not be working towards something. But there is no easy way to understand what it means in terms of performance or sound quality.
So yeah I am not sure that my perception is true, it is just the description of what I perceive from my filtered view.
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@holmz Thanks for going into more detail, and I was being earnest when I said I wasn't really able to make a judgment. If you say that not much advance has been made in materials for the last twenty years, I can only just say "I don't really know how to judge that statement" and will leave others the happy chore of either affirming or denying your claim with evidence they find salient. I'm here to learn, and you're contributing to that, so thank you!
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@hilde45 I think that we are probably more in alignment than not.
Distortion
Those pistonic drivers, the Accutons, and various beryllium tweeter are covering cone break up.
(But we don’t see them on many low end systems.)
The new Purifi motors, as well as the ScanSpeak motors address more linear motors assemblies.
(And we do not see them on low end systems)
There are also some baskets which are stiller and reflect less energy forwards.
Resonance
There were great cabinets in the 80s and 90s which lacked resonances. And even better ones now.
But many singing cabinet boxes exist still.
Diffraction:
Diffraction is better known and accounted for now, but maybe not 100%
And that is only the mechanical part. There is also the cross over parts, etc.
The lion’s share of innovation has been in the active speaker space.
So yeah we are chipping away at it, but as the market is a driver, low cost usually results in things being cut so the technology is replaced with “good enough”.
Ideally we get really good speakers and they last a life time.
More often it is, “These will do for now.”
I’ll take a deep breath and you sir, have a nice evening.
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@holmz I think we’re missing each other due merely to semantics, and I’m happy to let it rest. What has been said in this very interesting thread has gone way beyond resonances and has included materials in cones/drivers, ribbon tweeters, and other elements involved in making speakers. In your perspective (if I have your position right) these are minimal or even insignificant advances. To my mind, they seem substantial, and some here on the thread have agreed with that position. (Cf. decooney who worked in the industry and just said,
"Crossovers, caps, parts, Drivers, materials, cone materials, surround materials, internal wiring, binding posts, and even cabinet designs have improved compared to 20yrs ago....AMTs, better crossover parts and drivers with Nomex cones with better materials, new material diaphragms, decent solder, connectors, binding posts sound notably better than 20yrs ago.")
But I’m not an engineer or in the industry at all, so I cannot really judge what should count as a genuine advance. You seem confident that you know, so I will just let the issue/distinction rest.
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Thank you for weighing in. This is why I suspected the claim by @holmz (that there has been very little advances in materials since the 80's or 90's) might need checking.
@hilde45 sure, at the upper end there have been advances, but at the that higher end, they were doing good work 20 years ago. That link with the video up the page would be an example… but who exactly is running those drivers? We do not see them on any $2000 pair of speakers. Do they sound good, yeah they are great.
Take the OP’s speakers, or say the Moabs, and I doubt that we find anything earth shattering in terms of the driver technology. I doubt that the drivers would more than $10-$30 each. Maybe they are better than the $20 drivers 20 years ago… but how would we know?
There are still lots of speakers that have cabinet resonances these days, and they are using the same MDF and glues that they were using 2 decades ago. So something with bracing design and dampening is lacking… and that knowledge and material existed decades ago.
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The AMTs that @arion described are a bit of a different beast… They might cost a lot more than the $20 drivers that I have been referencing.
Sure technology trickles down, But I am not sure it trickles down to $2000 range? It might.
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The Monitor web site shows only minimum impedance, and sensitivity, and not impedance versus frequency, nor much else. So we are sort of assuming that the rest is OK.
But we really have no way of know much about them from the web site, other than the basics.
@jaybird5619 if you are in the SE, then maybe consider contacting Erin at Erins Audio Corner and have those Monitor speakers put onto his Klippel. Then we will know what they do, and whether new drivers and crossovers would be worthwhile.
He is in Alabama…
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Another way to look at speakers and design is to study the company. Companies have cultures and some are in for profit (the big ones) and have a quarterly report that drives everything, including engineering budget to invent or build new things. They hire the top engineers and have the brain power to develop new ideas. These engineers might have a revolutionary idea but whether they can pursue it depends on if it will make more money. These companies have a board, have an owner(s) who are not engineers, a larger staff with a CFO and very formal company structure. They move forward new ideas that improve income- period.
The small companies are more often Engineering driven, and they will develop a new idea even if it puts them out of business (engineers are often not good business people). They may struggle with staying around, but they are constantly developing new new new. We can all think of companies like this. I think of PS Audio, Cardas, ATC, Kii, etc. people like that. They have an engineer at the helm and he calls the shots, win or lose. We may not always agree with them, but they break new ground. They will not be cheap products and are often the most expensive.
So if you want new tech, look to the engineering based companies. If you want a deal, look to the manufacturing based companies. And stay aware of brands that change hands, as the brand value may have arisen through engineering, but the new owners see that brand as a way to grow the business through manufacturing. This has happened quite a few times lately with major Danish and English brands.
Brad
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@strawj
Very true. Nothing really new at any price point tho I still like a standard Brit Box as much as anything. All else is window dressing.
Absolutely. To think out of the decades old box is fairly easy, I'm sure we could all do it, but to bring it to the market takes an awful lot of ingenuity and guts.
The usual obstacles of price and consumer expectations are always there obstructing your way.
The biggest one, however, may be that undefeatable foe, domestic acceptability.
It's so formidable, that it's even more or less seen off most of those large loudspeakers that previous generations got to enjoy.
I was at lecture where I heard a prominent designer unabashedly declare that he began his new design from the premise that it must be domestically acceptable.
That is to say, a slim cabinet.
Of course, there are always constraints in anything you do, but to see sound quality demoted in such a way is always disappointing.
Therefore we should always give credit to designers like Hiroshi Kowaki who bring us products like the TD712z, or Lawrence Dickey with his dynamic Vivid Audio speakers.
Neither of these designs can be called your typical box, but alas neither also seemed destined to be commonly found either.
The TD712z mark 2 is certainly the speaker I'd most want to hear.
It's already well over a decade old and still no sign of a mk3. I guess when your working at the periphery of what is possible, time moves slowly.
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Very true. Nothing really new at any price point tho I still like a standard Brit Box as much as anything. All else is window dressing. |
Line arrays have appeared several times over the years and most have been very interesting and very good. Pipedreams come to mind.
But the latest and most interesting are Arions. I have a Mundorf AMT in my Tetra 606s. Dipole, they produce open and clear trebles. In the YouTube from the Florida Audio Show, the sound I heard from the Arion/Audio Research room was beyond any of the others from this show. This was especially evident in a drum solo on a LP. The presence and impact was unlike any I have heard. This lead me to exchange several emails with Arion and brought me to the point of almost going to Charlotte. If I ever wanted to change speakers, Arion would be on the top of my list.
Even only hearing a MP4 YouTube!
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I'll second the Tekton innovations. My 4 1/2 foot Pendragons with the 7 speaker array and upgraded wiring and caps Delivered to me for $2550. Nothing I've heard under 5K comes close to the Music these make. Tekton Design.
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Yes, for some to many. Crossovers, caps, parts, Drivers, materials, cone materials, surround materials, internal wiring, binding posts, and even cabinet designs have improved compared to 20yrs ago.
example:
VA: Helped a friend to upgrade his Vienna Acoustic Grand Mozarts. Replaced boards, caps, woofer surrounds, in the same cabinets on the first try. A marketed improvement just using better materials. 2nd try a better X-over design with modern measurement tools, software. Raised to another level again. It’s possible.
Hersey: Ask any Klipsch Hersey owner if their Version 1 speakers sound as good as versions 2,3, or the new Hersey 4s. Same basic speaker, better drivers, materials. Compare the old vs new versions and then ask if there is no change or improvement.
Quad57s: Dave at Marihart Audio completely redid his Quad57s, every single bit replacing what he could or simply using updates parts with the same basic speaker design and reports are in, he’s absolutely thrilled with the results. Super cool upgrade!
Mine: AMTs, better crossover parts and drivers with Nomex cones with better materials, new material diaphragms, decent solder, connectors, binding posts sound notably better than 20yrs ago.
I worked on a speaker assembly line early 1980s, and most of the internals were marginal compared to what we are in decent quality speakers today.
Yes, sure, in many cases with new speakers or upgrade kits too for old speakers as another option.
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Jaybird, We are located in Charlotte and welcome everyone to stop by for a listen. You don't have to be in the market for new speakers to stop by. We enjoy meeting people and making new acquaintances.
Capital Audiofest outside of DC capitalaudiofest.com
Florida Audio Expo floridaaudioexpo.com
are the closest to you.
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@Arion
Full disclosure - Speaker designer / manufacturer There are advances in materials all the time.
Thanks for your perspective. Very informative. Any other designers/manufacturers out there willing to weigh in?
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If you can possibly swing it I would highly recommend that you go to an audio show. AXPONA is coming up but there are shows all around the country. There is just no better way to hear how different speakers compare.
I'd love to do this if within a reasonable distance. How do you find out about the shows? Anything in the Southeast U.S. (e.g., Atlanta, Charlotte) in the near future?
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Look up Tekton Design speakers. They use a tweeter array to reproduce killer mid range. For me personally after a long journey of listening to many many speakers I stopped after being dumb struck by the Double Impact. THIS was the sound I was looking for.
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Good comments above - I'll add a few points.
Like pretty much all manufactured products, the quality range has compressed as the industry has matured. There are hundreds (thousands?) of speaker models available now and for the most part they are all pretty good for their price points. This is due to thousands of refinements that keep improving the quality as the bar gets raised higher and higher.
Breakthroughs are few and far between. Every manufacturer wants to say that their cone material or their crossover design is revolutionary but it is just marketing hype. There are a few examples where the designer is truly doing something different, i.e. MBL, but even that technology has been around for decades.
If you can possibly swing it I would highly recommend that you go to an audio show. AXPONA is coming up but there are shows all around the country. There is just no better way to hear how different speakers compare.
I'm going to give my view on a related question. I have a Krell preamp (KRC-2) and amp (KSA 300S) plus a pair of Thiel CS6 speakers that all date from the mid 90's. I went to the 2018 AXPONA and I was very pleasantly surprised to find out that my system holds its own compared to everything but the megabuck systems. In a few cases my system sounded better, to my ears, than speakers costing 6 figures. I can't tell you how many systems I heard where the cords, cables, and interconnects cost more than my entire system and the sound wasn't anything special. Granted, my room is more optimized than a typical room at the hotel but if there has been some sort of breakthrough in the last 25 years I can't hear it.
There was one notable exception - the MBL room playing the 101 Extremes Mk II. The sound in that room was indeed different and better, at least to my taste. I went back again and again and concluded that this is the system I would own if I could afford it.
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I’m going to mention a couple of brands which I think are doing really innovative things in an area of development I care about: driver arrays.
I’ve not heard them, sadly, but two brands stand out for me, and that’s Arion and Tekton. Both use multiple high frequency drivers and both have managed to really drive down the prices from what I’d expect, so a lot of the innovation here is that both brands have really broken the normal sales price to component cost ratios we see in almost all commercial speakers. Well done to both of them.
Both of these brands have also managed to bend the laws of physics and bring down the crossover frequency of their drivers significantly to make these arrays take over a broader range as well as leveraging acoustics to bend the speaker room interactions to their will.
Of course, they are different speakers, with different goals. Tekton achieves all of the benefits of a co-axial speaker with none of the drawbacks of doppler distortion,horn loading or having offset acoustical centers. Arion creates a broad-band line array that goes down to (forgot exactly) 100Hz or 200Hz. A remarkable achievement for AMTs. Given how AMT’s can be made very low distortion and vanishing amounts of stored energy I’m absolutely intrigued! In some ways this is like the Woofer-Assisted Wide Band designs I’ve seen, but in a line array!
In conclusion, yeah, there’s always some new exotic material being touted in driver design, whether in the driver, the construction of the surround, the voice coil former, or the spider. B&W, Focal, KEF and Monitor Audio and others have really pushed these ideas forward, but if you ask me what’s really interesting it’s in Tekton and Arion using arrays to bend a room to their will and making things possible at really remarkable price points for the offering.
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Better materials, better measuring tools, better understanding of human preferences, more powerful computers for analysis, more on line reviews and impressions....but in the end it all comes down to how does the system sound to you in your room with your music...and unfortunately, even with Room Perfect and all the other room improvement systems, there is still a fair amount of trial an error.
Until you try it in your home, you can't know for sure.
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Borresen, Magico, YA, all pushing the envelope-- but also very expensive. Listen to Borresen if you get a chance. The best speakers in the world IMHO.
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The short answer is "yes", but if you put it on a graph it would look like a "smiley face" with the biggest gains at the budget level and extreme high ends. The mid-band of the range has been generally getting it right for quite a while. Gains in this range are better, but incremental.
To the OPs specific case, I'm with @realworldaudio on this one. Improving parts quality in an existing speaker can prodce stunning results with the speaker fighting well above its weight (price?) class in transparency, detail, and emotional impact. Spending more money on a speaker that incorporates low-to-medium quality crossover components is like spending big money on a turbo upgrade for your car, and driving around with the parking brake on. Taking the parking brake off is a good first step.
We drill down pretty deep into speaker upgrades and modifications. Our rule of thumb is to have an upfront converation about the speaker they are aspiring to own. Then, set an upgrade limit of 40% of that cost as a budget to upgrade the client's existing speakers. Above that, the additional investment in improving internals may not overcome the gains made by improvements in newer/better drivers, stiffer cabinets, etc. So, we get off at the 40% exit. This approach will, without question, have an outcome that will do MANY things better than a newer, more expensive speaker of a similar design. In the OPs example, I would set a budget top end at $800 (40% x $2k). This will allow for the installation of serious crossover components (and, other upgrades) and allow the speaker to perform as the original designer intended. I'm not trying to paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa. Just geting things out of the way that make the speaker sound worse.
If you are handy with a soldering gun, you can perform the work yourself. If not, the crossovers can be removed, shipped off, and returned to you with all the "goodies" installed -- including the pigtails (using quality cable, of course) ready to solder to the raw driver's input lugs. I've taken in speakers that, to put it mildly, were not my Top Ten list of favorites. Then, found myself actually enjoying listening to them after the performance mods. Just think what will happen when you already enjoy the sound of your speakers?
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After Jim Winey invented Magnepan speakers, the rest were simply not important.
IF you want speakers that reproduce WHAT YOU FEED THEM, this is your choice. Then, you can fine-tune your electronics and source information.
If you start with speakers that do not color the sound, you are starting correctly for only hearing what you provide.
Do NOT believe me. Go to a shop and listen for yourself, then have the dealer bring a pair to your house and listen IN YOUR ROOM.
Cheers!
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@arion
There are advances in materials all the time. Manufacturing process improvements help companies build products that are more consistent....We...have invested considerable resources to design, develop and manufacture our own AMT drivers. Advances in adhesives, diaphragm architecture and substantial research of magnetic motor structures have allowed us to build AMT drivers that cover the range from 120 Hz to 24 KHz.
Thank you for weighing in. This is why I suspected the claim by @holmz (that there has been very little advances in materials since the 80's or 90's) might need checking.
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I was actually in the exact same situation about 4 years ago. 20 year hiatus and then wanted to get back in. I feel you 100% jaybird! Had the same thoughts and wonders...But I knew where I left off was where I should start. With the speaks. Back then the journey led me to Dynaudio and that was it for me. My Audience 82's were my Holy Grail. Selling them after my divorce was one of the hardest things I had to do...Well 20 years later the Audience line is long gone. But Excite line which I didn't love (couldn't hold a candle to Audience, IMHO) led me to Evoke which is much closer to that Dynaudio Audience line that blew me away. However I still think about my Audience 82's and would love to do a side by side with my Evoke 50's. I'm not entirely sold today's technology is that much better. But at least the Evoke's have filled that gap more than anything else could...Just my personal experience and opinion...
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The mass production of neodymium magnets has allowed some worthwhile improvements in driver design.
Borresen Acoustics has done some interesting work in lowering the inductance of its bass/mid unit through the elimination of iron.
That's just two examples of "under the surface" progress in loudspeaker design.
The Manger and MBL drive units are innovative.
In general audio is no different to most other industries in that the majority of progress comes from incremental improvement. The internal combustion engine is a good example - most of the conceptual work was done in the early twentieth century - lead by aircraft engines. However, advances in electronics, materials science and precision engineering have allowed significant improvements in performance, fuel economy, emissions control and durability. Even the electrification of cars is only taking a well established core technology.
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You can get very good speakers for not a lot of money
....wharfedale comes to mind.
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The first commercially available speaker using DSP came out in 1991. Change in the speaker industry over the last 20 years has been more evolutionary than revolutionary. However, the pace has increased due to increased capacity for modelling and evaluation of ideas, and the rapidly increasing rate at which knowledge spreads.
However, if the question is about the history of Monitor Audio, here's their version of it: https://www.monitoraudio.com/en/about-us/timeline/. A lot of it is model introductions, but there are plenty of references to incorporation of new (to MA) technologies.
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Check out the new PS Audio speakers. You can find some great videos on ayouTube to see them in action at folks homes and hear PS Audiobtalk about them. Very interesting and new. Revel make some great more affordable speakers. You can get them from Crutchfueld
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Personally I would not upgrade them.
(It seems to be at best a minor sideways swap. There is no evidence that much has changed other than inflation.
For example, my 80s speakers were ~ $800, and are now $5650… and while they are on their 7th or 8th iteration, I think it would be more like the 10, 20 or the 40 k$ range to see a super obvious upwards change.)
If you like DSP, then you could go with powered speakers, or add a DSP.
I would look at some modest room treatment… and probably that would be after getting REW and microphone like a UMIK.
If you are going to upgrade passive speakers, then I suspect it is going to take more $2000. Hence; I would just suggest that you love them for what they are.
Getting active speakers removes the need for the amp, so selling the amp and speakers and going active, seems like another reasonable approach… but that will gobble up 2x-4x, of your 2k$ upgrade plan.
(Maybe you could get 1k for the speakers and amp.)
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I just recently bought a pair of Maggie's, and they are pretty much the same as they were in the 70's
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Full disclosure - Speaker designer / manufacturer
There are advances in materials all the time. Manufacturing process improvements help companies build products that are more consistent. Competition helps keep the costs down. Speaker technology keeps evolving but it's not always obvious to consumers. Foe example, there are companies that specialize in speaker voice coils or pole pieces. They may invest in more efficient assembly machines which allows them to make a better, more consistent product while keeping cost down.
We are a small speaker manufacturer and have invested considerable resources to design, develop and manufacture our own AMT drivers. Advances in adhesives, diaphragm architecture and substantial research of magnetic motor structures have allowed us to build AMT drivers that cover the range from 120 Hz to 24 KHz. Our speakers use digital crossover and room correction. Our woofers have a unique loading. We did not invent AMT drivers, DSP or pioneer driver loading. We did reinvent some existing technology, combined it with some relatively new technologies to build a very unique speaker system. New designs do happen.
There is ongoing development in many areas which can lead to new and innovative designs or improve the performance of more traditional designs.
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Most 'phile speakers are not meant to be exposed indoors to the sun, so 'under' is a terrifically bad idea to pursue.....concert PA excepted....;)
Anyone who bought 30K$ speakers 20 yrs. ago is probably listening to full boat MBL systems now, or their preferred equivalent.
Cabinet resonance will always exist; the simple physics cannot be ignored, only dealt with, unless dipole or omni. The lower frequencies can be dealt with DSP and an active system, beyond which is the placement in the given space....
Space, your final frontier. I'm working on ignoring mine for the time...ergo, the previous comment.
Welcome to the weakend, y'all. J
Don't be like me and do it in only one place... ;)
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