Speaker Technology over the last 10 years

04-27-09: Chashas1
Ah, you initially said woofer, mrtennis, not bass panel, so I assumed cone. They'd still have to come a long way to impress me. It also seemed the bigger they got in the old days the less I liked them.

Pardon me for injecting myself into this conversation, but Magnepan calls them woofers. That doesn't disqualify them from being bass panels as well. As for the size, they are not as large as the bass panels of the 20.1, but are a downscaled version of the same. As I said before, the Magnepan woofer and small panels sound faster than the 20.1s.

Integration between the woofer(s) and panels couldn't be better. Transient response is about identical, and here's the kicker: the woofer can respond up to 7 Khz, so blending with the satellites is easy. It doesn't start beaming or running out of response at 125 Hz like a regular woofer. It's the most seamless-sounding separate woofer/sat setup I've ever heard.

I was re-reading Revrob's original post.

I purchased my last pair of speakers 3 months ago and they are over 10 years old (original Verity Parsifals). In fact, the design probably dates to the mid-90's. After numerous monitors (Harbeth, Spendors etc) it was first full-range with a small enough footprint not to "over-power the living room" (my wife's word's). Admittedly, I was a little reluctant to invest in an older speaker and design. But, wow can these things sing. My previous speaker was a Harbeth M30; a truly excellent monitor with vocals and amazing midrange, which btw I thoroughly enjoyed (as did my wife listening to Maria Callas or Diana Krall sacd). My point, there are some high end products of the past that can be accessed for a reasonable price today. Could I have done better with a another more recent design speaker (used) for the same dollar amount? I don't know. Possibly? Clearly, there are newer iterations (evolution) of the Parsifals which sound better over this time-frame.

To Revrob's second point, the sonics of the M30s did improve every time I upgraded the electronics, especially the amplification. It was very noticeable, from better defined (and lower) bass to a smoother high end that was more detailed. This surprised me a little. The M30s were capable of more when coupled with better electronics.

anyway, my 2c worth.......

I think that some designers have maximized typically thirty to fifty year old driver designs, such as the Sander Sound electrostats, but really we have only slightly better speakers now than we have had no improvements. There is one exception. I have heard several speaker using expensive air craft aluminum cabinets that have been extraordinary. I have not been able to afford any yet and one I wanted never went into production, this was the LSA Model 10.

By contrast I think electronics have greatly improved and my speakers have revealed this improvement, meaning that the speakers were better than the driving electronics.

does anyone think great strides have been made in crossover technology, especially with the availability of a such a variety of capacitors and resistors.

is it a given that a crossover from 1969 is inferior to one designed in 2009 ?

""crossover from 1969 is inferior to one designed in 2009 ?
""

no crossover parts will help if basic of speaker(drivers matching, xover topology) is poor, but short answer is-YES new xover components is by 10-20% better(and now much more widely used than at that time) and as a bonus by 300% more expensive.