Speakers: Anything really new under the sun?

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....

 

 

 

 

 

@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. 

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. 

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

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