@emergingsoul --
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Not sure why driver sizes tend to be smaller these days unless you pay a lot more.
Indeed, a lot more; size is progressively expensive in hi-fi, not to mention high-end, and for physics to be more closely approximated - taking a small, already expensive package and making it into a bigger one - it’s an expenditure eventually only the very few can accommodate. A shame really obsessing about painting that little corner of the canvas in the most minute of detail, when the rest of it, its sheer scale and totality, is neglected. That is, at least when one knows what’s missing.
Smaller size is by and large about convenience/practical considerations/interior decoration and spousal acceptance, from where effort is often invested to make it appear as if the smaller package is actually a desirable trait, or one overall sufficient sonically (some justification is obviously sought into buying small-ish products that expensive, or even less expensive). And who wants to pay $1,000 for a measly sound bar? Many, it seems; they’re selling like warm bread - go figure.
I’m not trying to negate the potential prowess of small(er) speakers in smaller spaces, but it’s when smaller sized speakers become excessively expensive that bothers me, because vital aspects of the sound only achieved thorough an adherence to physics (i.e.: sheer displacement area, high sensitivity, etc.), important to me, are still sorely missing. Why then bother, and at that price?
Simplicity topologically (and what it in-effect leads to) is something to aspire to, a trait with smaller speakers in particular, but it’s likely a side effect of a purchase incentive here that’s not always consciously sought to begin with, at least not as much as seeking smaller size per se. Holding on to that trait, however - and for good reason, I’d claim - the question could be how to scale up in size without throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and I’m thinking mostly complexity and price here. It’s certainly possible to achieve, I might add, but not through the package one would usually expect, while also needing a healthy dose of change in mentality towards sound reproduction in a home environment.