Can anyone tell me where the progress in audio went?

few industries are immune from needing continual sales to sustain... high end audio is no exception

so the marketing machinery, in all its forms, keeps cranking

that is not to say that progress is not being made, in both the absolute front, and on trickling-down of higher performance aspects to more customers at more affordable levels

Like a lot of things once the technology has improved to a particular point where further improvement is marginal at best, effort starts to go into styling, snake oil, aesthetics etc. that's where things are with hi-fi.

Just look at cars (pre EV) or surfboards or many other things. Not much has really changed unless you believe the marketing.

+1 theaudioamp exactly

The quality of digital audio improves every day.

The quality of budget gear improves every day.

The quality of uber expensive gear like Boulder or Magico improves every day.

The only category that is stagnant is midfi analog lol.

look at the specs of the purify amp or any of the recent topping chifi

@kairosman  -- Uber expensive speakers maybe, and even upper mid-end speakers. Most of the electronics tapped out ages ago. It is just marketing now.