Are advances in technology making speakers better?

The Ferguson Hill FH001 and FH002 and FH003 Horn speaker System with Horn Acrylic Baffles and Acrylic bass subs !

Based on the Lowther Hegeman but much improved !

Maybe the World’s Best Sounding Speakers Ever Made !

They have Dealers here in the USA now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvYEiSE8g8w 

https://www.fergusonhill.co.uk/fh001/

@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. 

Thank you, @larryi.

@mijostyn wrote:

magnificent? Hardly. They were awful and they still are awful.

I guess the following says it all:

If you want to wax poetic over an antique speaker try the KLH Model 3. Not great either, but a lot more listenable. 

I rest my case. 

@phusis

Yes, that was a great explanation between some of the differences between then and now.

If anything modern speakers by comparison sound overly processed/filtered, dull, malnourished and quenched of life

I had the fortune (or is it misfortune?) to hear the Lowther Hegeman speaker recently, and despite it looking like a large
cocktail cabinet, and not having the most precise imaging, the bass was as effortless as you could imagine.

This early 1950s design left a greater impression on my memory than anything else in years.

Can there be any other speaker that is easier to listen to than this?

So why can’t all loudspeakers have this kind of ’organic’ natural sounding bass?

This spatial bass issue (as opposed to coming from a rectangular box) is where I think much of the difference between the very best and the rest lies when it comes to loudspeaker performance.

As you explained earlier, my experience here (and with Avantgarde Trio’s years before) does seem to confirm that horn designs do need to be bigger.

Much bigger.

http://www.lowthervoigtmuseum.org.uk/lowtherHegeman.html

 

If anything modern speakers by comparison sound overly processed/filtered, dull, malnourished and quenched of life 

I am picturing “Young Frankenstein” say ion good, “It’s Alive”… at some point the resonance and distortions could be too much of a life of their own.

I like playing the “GoGo’s” “WEe got the beat” as much as the next guy or girl, but We can apply Anthropomorphism to actually believe that the speakers are alive.

A “Live Recording” is an “Alive Recording”