Speaker Technology over the last 10 years

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.

That's what makes this hobby fun, everyone's preferences and opinions. I love speakers with cones, I want something maintenance free, that meets with the wife's approval and is musically satisfying to me.

One of the things I have observed over the years is that the only people that are impressed with my system are people who buy their stuff from Radio Shack or Best Buy. I don't have any audiophile friends so to speak of where we evaluate each others system.

I guess what is important to you is all that matters. It's like being married, some people who never choose your spouse and I guess they would never choose your speakers, either.

I collect vintage drivers and other kit. Sure some of it sounds good and designs are very interesting. But what I listed is what I find has made the most improvement. I still listen to a moded Altec in my office its good not great but fun and drivers of interest to me. But the only vintage I find equal to modern is comp drivers and few woofers. Some of the vintage cabinet designs are useful today with improvments. And you might be right about a large corpration realy caring about audio design? Except Fostex SEAS PIONEER etc so maybe a few are still at it;)

Back to the original question:

For better or worse, there's been one giant change:

Digital/x-overs and (sometimes) room correction.

All of the DEQX enabled room corrected stuff (Salk, Selah, etc.) and the non-
room corrected DEQX (Salagar, NHT Xd -already discontinued) and the
emerging Lyngdorf entries (Lyngdor, Bosendorfer - now called something
else, etc), as well as the Behringer powered models (Emerald Physics).

You also see Audyssey and similar systems; both full-range pre/pros and
bass only units(for subwoofers).

You may or may not approve of the approach, but this represents a
fundamental change in technology of the sort the OP inquired about.

Marty