Speakers: Anything really new under the sun?

@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.

Yep - new stuff is happening, and that is a general fact.
However as we move from general fact to specific case.
The new tech is immediate for the more privileged, buying state of the art speakers.
And the for the masses… that trickle down is time delayed.

So the main disagreement is in the specific context of whether the new $2000 version of the OP’s older $600 speakers have any new tech in them.

… 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.
…

How would one be going about knowing whether any of the new tech is in the speakers he mentioned?

This whole thing is like like talking about transportation being improved and pointing to mag-lev trains and Virgin corp tourist space flights as proof.
That may or may not have anything at all to do with the technology of getting back-n-forth to work in a new car, a city bus or tram.

So the technology trickle down is more “hopeful” in the context of the OP’s $2000 speaker… than something factual on a different brand’s $10000 speaker set.

We literally have no idea on these Mission Audio speakers other than their sales pitch, and reviews. Their website is somewhat thin on metrics, so how do we know what is happening and what tech entered into them?

https://www.monitoraudio.com/en/product-ranges/silver-series-7g/silver-200-7g/

Being personally unable to point to any facts, I have to encourage the OP to continue being happy with their existing MA speakers, until they have a way to verify that the new ones are a worthwhile improvement.

@johnk 

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

An excellent post that supports what many of us have been saying.

High performance loudspeakers were already capable of great performance decades and decades ago.

The main area targeted by research nowadays seems to be focused around designs that are considered to be 'domestically acceptable'.

For sure, many of us here are prepared to sacrifice a certain amount of domestic acceptability (if not quite the Shearer Horn) for sonic gain, but evidently the vast majority of loudspeaker buyers are not.

Perhaps therein lies the problem as it's difficult to see how relatively small slim tower speakers can ever sound as good as some of the behemoth designs featured in the 2 websites linked above.

The fact that some of these new designs, despite the size constraints,  have even gotten fairly close is a testament towards some of the design breakthroughs we have seen in the last few decades.

Especially when set up carefully in a sympathetic room with a sympathetic system driving them.

I design manufacture collect restore all types of loudspeakers I get my hands on the most advanced transducers many times far before they hit the market for consumers. I assist in the development of transducers. And I keep a Shearer horn about because after all this time we have not bested that design and its essence is still with us today. I've had many jaded audio professionals hear the Shearer horns and have to rethink what progress we have really made since the 1930s. If you compare a modern BE dome tower to a Shearer it sounds like a toy compared to it. We lose so much sound quality to convenience don't fool yourself into thinking you have the absolute sound.

@johnk

And I keep a Shearer horn around because after all this time we have not bested that design

Which of today’s speakers do you think come closer to that design. What qualities make the Shearer such a stand out to you?

Do a Linkwitz LX521 DIY project and you'll have your "Forever Loudspeaker."  And it won't cost you $30,000.