Speaker Technology over the last 10 years

Shadorne, Consider that the 'obvious' that Mr T refers to may be nothing more that what he said in that post. He is telling us how he feels, what his opinion is. Nothing more or less. He doesn't like cone speakers. Cone speakers have faults. People buy them anyway. He will never buy one. Nothing controversial there.

So who cares what he believes or why, especially given his continual hawking the merits of one speaker, loaded with faults, that may only do one thing well (if the way it does that is the way you want to hear it).

His posts often remind me of necessity for getting even weeds to grow is some water and 'nutrients'. He supplies the 'nutrients', you supply the water, volia - a new crop of weeds. :-)

Johnk, "Cone materials, surrounds,spiders, cone shapes, crossover parts, cabinet designs, binding posts sets, internal dampening all have improved for transducers."

I agree with you, mostly...

Although, I will say that some of the things we're told strike me as people congratulating themselves for what amounts to the normal incremental improvement one sees in most fields that survive over a period of time. We're living in a time of evolution, not revolution. I believe that is a reflection of the fact that precious little in the way of resources are now dedicated to the craft.

A couple of years ago, I attended the annual Tube Tasting that Jonathan Weiss puts on at Oswald's Mill. Although some of the discussion was above me, and some has been forgotten, a most informative presentation was given on the team of folks who designed the 12" RCA full-range driver way back when (late 1940s?). It was a real breakthrough, and pointed the industry to where we have come since. I don't want to get into too much of the minutiae, but suffice it to say that regarding the level of talent, resources, money, time, and passion that RCA threw at the development, I believe NOTHING like that will likely occur again for a very, very long time.

As regards panels versus cones I am still considering "exchew"...

sorry for the spelling error, the word is "eschew".

as to faults of cone design, they include the following:

cabinet colorations, lack of driver coherence, stridency of many metal-based tweeters, and crossing over dissimilar drivers

of course, pick your poison. nothing is perfect, i;ve picked mine. it's all a matter of opinion.

My comment on "eschew" was just a gentle jab for a laugh - my thanks for taking it in the spirit it was intended and not taking offense.

I agree that each type speaker has it faults.

I find panel speakers less dynamic and too ambient. They also require more power and are hard loads for amps but I have never heard the really high end panels so I could be swayed.