Are advances in technology making speakers better?

What should you do? First of all, relax. You are always being told to upgrade. We all are. Why? Because, in order to stay in business they have to sell, and people who have already demonstrated desire (existing customers) are always the best market. Hopefully you bought what you bought because you liked the sound. As long as you continue to be happy with the sound then it really doesn't matter what they do and so you can just sit back and relax.

Now, about that technology. It really isn't speaker technology now, is it? Its materials technology. Lighter, stiffer, less resonant, more magnetic, that kind of thing. This is not speaker technology. 

This is important to distinguish because among other reasons it means you can upgrade yours any time you like. Inside pretty much every speaker ever made are some disturbingly cheap crossover parts- caps, resistors, inductors. Very old technology that being stuck deep inside nobody ever sees and so being audiophiles we think that stuff either doesn't matter or is black magic, or even both- being audiophiles logic seldom enters the frame. But the truth is all they have to do is spend an extra $5 more per cap and this alone is enough for anyone to notice. 

But again, that's not speaker technology. That's materials, craftsmanship even.

Speaker technology is something rarely ever comes along. Electrostatics, horns, those are speaker technology. 

A new technology, genuine speaker technology, would be to find a way to make something like a lot of small tweeters functionally equivalent to a single 9" midrange driver. THAT would be some new technology! Unless I guess your name is Eric Alexander, and then audiophiles don't even get that it really is new, they just see a lot of drivers.

Technology is hard. I'd enjoy what I've got if I were you.

pick your expert carefully…. some change gear like clothes….new amp, preamp, turntable, cartridge / ancillary, super tweeters….. list goes on………. and yet lack introspection about JUST how hypocritical they sound…and behave

you are not being told to upgrade, you are told to give them your money. These greedy companies are out to make a profit and and their trick is to make new products that they claim is better than the old ones and you will be happier if you buy them. What a world we live in! 

What should you do? First of all, relax. You are always being told to upgrade

Good advice.

I am so confused what should I do?

Watch Steve Guttenberg videos.

@jumia wrote:

How much more effort is required too perfect a speaker? my speaker is several years old and all the gear and the speaker are all broken in. And now I'm being told to upgrade.

You're not being told what to do, if anything you're letting someone tell you what they would like you to do. Don't let their business (incl. marketing crap) dictate your choice, instead make it the other way 'round and/or cut loose of it all and use what's available (from past/present, 2nd hand/new, DIY/preassembled, pro/domestic, etc.) to make your own preferred sonic meal - so-called advances in technology, peer pressure, dogma and paradigm be damned. 

It's about physics, implementation and quality/type of design. The first two are about scaling and the effort you/they out into getting the different pieces/parameters to intermingle properly, and the latter have been around for decades in a variety of shapes with nothing essentially new under the sun.

Mostly what it's about is no different now than it was many years ago. There have been important advances in digital tools, and class D amplifiers make for more compact active speakers (with the aid of digital tools) with potentially tons of wattages. Indeed, DSP tooling is a great asset with active speakers, and they needn't be small nor bundled solutions. 

At the core of things though what's out there is generally streamlined business ventures meant to make money from a package too small and wrapped in different yet stereotypical looking clothing to distinguish themselves and have excuses for design "upgrades." Any advances that are are not least about making something smaller with the least negative impact, but with speakers there's ultimately no escaping physics. 

My guess: if you were to hear and realize what even fairly priced, and perhaps in particular older, properly sized high efficiency speakers could do, you'd step off the merry-go-round of the "small, new and expensive" speaker category that seeks of you to make progressively deeper digs in your pockets and invest in their going-in-circles business hierarchy. Once the basics are right it's really about the implementation, and suddenly much if not most of the fancy new stuff just becomes irrelevant.