Loudspeakers have we really made that much progress since the 1930s?

Whart, you raise interesting points. As for the Quads, I have the new ones, highly modified.

Your experience mirrors mine in that the Quad 57’s sounded very good. What prevents the successors from sounding as musical is, in no particular order:
- step up transformers
- overpower protection circuits
- high dielectric constant ceramic caps in the delay line

But they have wonderful bones - the basics are there!!!

So, what I did was:
- change step ups to a Vanderveen toroidal design
- built power amps which had V+ / V- rails which could not drive the new step up transformers into the protection range, and so could safely by-pass the protection circuits
- daisy-chained aftermarket styrene caps to replace some ceramic caps, and built teflon caps to replace the others
- bought multiple pairs of speakers.

The result is that each speaker:
- has clean electronics
- is minimally driven
- and sounds glorious, from ppp to FFF.

I have played the system loud enough for the hearing challenged, on a few occasions. Volume is not realistically limited above 40Hz. So, for all practical purposes, volume is not an issue. Multiple speakers solves that.

Getting back to the OP:

Note that teflon caps were not available in 1930. The compound was not discovered until 1938. Applications took longer.

Transistors (hence low voltage circuits) were not available until the 50’s, and no-one knew how to use full complementary push-pull until at least a generation later. Not that many appear to know today, for that matter.

Another new thing - laser trimmed resistors. Can be made accurate to a few ppm. The new (dare I say it?) Vishay VAR series is in a sonic class by itself.

I think if we go from one type of technology to another, it's impossible to say things got better or worse.  If you want to talk giant auditorium speakers as the "standard of 1930's" then we have to compare them to the current giant theater speakers as well.

I think for movies, encoding, amplification and speakers are much better than it used to be. Encoding alone is about 8 generations ahead of what it was then. Single track optical, double track optical, Dolby Surround, multi-track magnetic, Dolby Digital and SMTE locked DTS.  Standards for measurements, calibration and room acoustics have also improved greatly. Mind you, the movies haven't really gotten better though. :)

So apples to apples, yes, things have gotten much better, from stereo to television sound, living room sound, and car audio.

As I've said before though, some critical parts of speaker technology Have improved, but not every manufacturer cares to pay attention. Distortion, compression, thermal compression, and stored energy.  Not everyone cares so not everyone bothers. I do. :)

Best,


Erik

As one who loves my vintage Altec and their horns, I can listen to them until I just can't keep my eyes open any longer, no fatigue from my diy Altecs.
Great sounds, and low cost compared to what I see today.

I can't resist tossing my 2 sense into the fray...*G*

Theory and the math behind remains the same; we measure them better and more precisely now...

Materials and means have improved; 'mass market' offerings have improved, but are subject to 'cost analysis' and ROI, yielding 'meh'.  'High end' has become a garden or a wasteland (depending on your POV) of what's selected and applied and how, yielding endless posts on 'X does what and how better than Y or Z' here @ AG and anywhere else you bide your time.

I'd rather waste my time DIY'ing my Walsh's.  More bang for my buck, IMHO, since I'm faced with either vintage of unknown use/abuse, HHR, or German Physiks.  And I can fix them myself. ;)

Anything really new?  DML's...although I suspect if one digs long enough you'd find something somewhere that would (at least) allude to the concept.  The "we set a loudspeaker face down on this suspended panel and it sounded funny" sort of thing.  Nobody made any $ on it, so they walked away....*L*  Now 'they' are exciting plywood, glass, and composites, tinkering with it.  I'm intrigued...watching for now...

Vintage....hmm, I'm sitting on some '80's JBL 3 ways looking for a box to inhabit.  Cabs were trashed by mindless geeks, reconed the woofers, ready for their 2nd life.  A reconed EV 15" dying to be a New Age sub.  A pair of horn/woofer Utah 2way wanting a home that looks 'cool' (I want the horn visible...so few people have actually heard a horn these days...

What boats my float of late is the 'what if' of combining an array of Walsh, DML, and a distributed bass (DEBRA, if you're inclined to find) and taking over the space with active EQ on all of it.  Purpose build a 'puter to push it all around.  See if imaging can be taken to another level...

*G* Y'all have your 'quests'.  I have mine.