Are advances in technology making speakers better?

There are a lot of fads I have seen come and go.  Titanium, Beryllium, ceramic,  milled aluminum, diamond, coaxial, perfectimpulse response, etc. and individually none of these IMHO have been so good as to dominate the market.

However, I do think we have better speakers in large part thanks to better tools.  Affordable to free lab quality microphones, measurement software, speaker cabinet and crossover simulators have, with some exceptions, ensured a marketplace of excellent choices.

For the most part the days of speaker crossovers optimized only on the frequency domain are gone.  We now expect excellent designs with good frequency AND impedance AND OFF axis responses.

@cd318 

well, it's all subjective. I really meant "entertaining" as opposed to useful. But I am twisting my own words now. I don't have 20 or 10 minutes watching a stranger for pure entertainment value. I better learn something if I spend the time that I could use for other things.

@kingbr  I hear you and can relate!

I have switched in numerous speakers over the years to try to find something I like better than my trusty Epi speakers... to little avail.  

I only got my Klipsch Heresy IV for something different... are they "better" in some ways?  Yes, especially in a larger room.  But they do not kick my old Epi to the curb by any means, and in many ways the Epi are far more practical, too, smaller and less picky placement, in addition to continue tickling the old eardrums in mysterious ways.  

Maybe when I move out of L.A. and to Arizona to enjoy full on energy independence (thank the solar for that) and open skies and easy living, I'll try out the Q Acoustics Concept 50 vs. the Heresy, but even then, I'm keeping the classic Epi 100 for my second system. 

There's something to be said for keeping what you have once you have them and like them.

@cd318 

You have to look across the spectrum of speakers. And really Quad? The first thing absolutely every Qual lover will say is, “well they are rolled off at the top and are really restricted in the bass… but within the midrange they are spectacular.”  That doesn’t constitute evidence of lack of progress. 

I suspect that the taste of the buying public has more to do with the sound of modern gear than the state of the technology.  The public favors “detail” which means lean upper bass because warm upper bass obscures higher frequencies that provide the kind of detail people seek.