Sound quality of Newer versus Older speakers


From a sound quality perspective, is there anything that newer speakers are doing better than older speakers. For reference, I have a pair of Monitor Audio Silver 300s which are amazing me with their ability to balance detail retrieval with an ability to avoid harshness (with the right ancillaries). My subjective perception is that this type of balance between resolution and refinement was more difficult to find in speakers from 20-30 years ago.
calvinandhobbes
Newer, by far.  Cone materials are far superior, even more so at the lower end of the spectrum. Ditto techniques for reducing varying inductance effects.  Better capacitors.  Far less cabinet resonances. More consistent dispersion. 


Newer, by far. Cone materials are far superior, even more so at the lower end of the spectrum. Ditto techniques for reducing varying inductance effects. Better capacitors. Far less cabinet resonances. More consistent dispersion.
all you say is true...however, if behind all that tech you don't put a engineer with an exceptionally good hearing and musical culture, the result is a round Zero. This is what happens to many companies...they focus on tech specs, even the wrong ones probably, aggressive marketing and fancy design. For those companies sound quality seems the last priority. In my very limited audiophile experience i know that dynaudio is one of them. They changed their priorities in 2016. In fact there are almost no happy contour 60 owners around. It's full of dynaudio fans which praised the old product lines and which agree the new product lines are a disaster. Despite better materials, better capacitors, better cabinet design (sure??? My contour 60 sounds like a wooden box emitting sound inside out). If you have a 10K budget for a speaker you can get crazy stuff in the used market.
 
It's like with everything else, like a super modern kitchen with a crappy cook, a F1 car with a crappy driver, 100mpx camera with a stupid photographer and so on. Technology has to be driven...it doesn't drives itself. Big companies are often driven by financial targets and less y passion and commitment.
Are there differences due speakers being voiced to the music of their era?
I remember hearing Dylan's "Desire" on some 70 era's monitors with big, sloppy woofers, and thinking, "Wow, this is really right."
Sort of like movies' voicing of natural speech changing over time: surely nobody actually talked like that in the 70s? :)