# Improvements in Speaker Audio Quality in last 30 years.



## shkumar4963 (Nov 16, 2014)

Yesterday I was talking with a group of speaker designers and audio engineers. They had worked in companies like Allison, Acoustics research and had designed speakers like IC-20 (from Allison). I had asked the same question to them. According to them the improvements have not been much in the spund quality. Speaker being a mechanical device, they were pretty mature 30 years back. However introduction of wave guide has improved dispersion. Characteristics of tweeters. In addition there have been improvements in testing and reliability. The cost has also come down somewhat although there is more hype now than 30 years back and most of the hype is not based on speaker quality improvements but edorsement from paid review magazines like Stereophile, what HiFi and others. In these reviews, reviewer almost provide measurement that show significant improvement over other speakers but says that these speakers were the best he had ever heard and gives them 5 stars. 

I would like to hear what you guys abd gals think. Do you hear much quality improvements from PSB, KEF, etc over the last few years.


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## NBPk402 (Feb 21, 2012)

shkumar4963 said:


> Yesterday I was talking with a group of speaker designers and audio engineers. They had worked in companies like Allison, Acoustics research and had designed speakers like IC-20 (from Allison). I had asked the same question to them. According to them the improvements have not been much in the spund quality. Speaker being a mechanical device, they were pretty mature 30 years back. However introduction of wave guide has improved dispersion. Characteristics of tweeters. In addition there have been improvements in testing and reliability. The cost has also come down somewhat although there is more hype now than 30 years back and most of the hype is not based on speaker quality improvements but edorsement from paid review magazines like Stereophile, what HiFi and others. In these reviews, reviewer almost provide measurement that show significant improvement over other speakers but says that these speakers were the best he had ever heard and gives them 5 stars.
> 
> I would like to hear what you guys abd gals think. Do you hear much quality improvements from PSB, KEF, etc over the last few years.


I currently have a mix of DIY, and 20+ year old speakers, and i think they sound as good if not better than the speakers i have heard made in the last 5 years. I agree with the statement that there has not been much improvements... IMO they are just doing little tweaks in general to refine or alter the sound.


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## 1FastP11 (Nov 25, 2008)

Hi,
This is my first post here. I think subwoofers have made a huge improvement over the last decade or decade and a half. You can now get a much more powerful bass out of smaller drivers, with absurd power handling (compared to older subs). Peak to peak excursion compared to car pistons (j/k). And enclosure size shrinking too. I agree with the shkumar4963 though, enclosure and drivers are still pretty much the same as grandpa's speakers, other than costs and build/consistency quality.

Thanks 
Claudio


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Agreed, Subwoofer design has improved dramatically but only because there is a need to. Before 1995 there were no movie soundtracks that required a sub for home use to go below 25Hz these days if it doesn't hit 15Hz you're not getting close to the soundtracks capabilities. 
Speaker sound quality has not evolved much at all simply because "if it aint broke dont fix it" My EVs from 1985 sound just as good as speakers costing thousands today.


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## nova (Apr 30, 2006)

I think I agree with the posts above, no huge improvement in speaker design but lots of other technological stuff that may or may not improve the sound but likely improve reliability; wave guides, dampening materials, computer optimized crossovers, Beryllium, aluminum, Kapton, Nomex, some synthetic materials etc.


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## Serenity Now (Mar 28, 2014)

What is interesting is that the proliferation of online research, endorsements/reviews and sales has shifted the market in a direction where great sound is now affordable. There are many great offerings and startups I dont think would have been possible even 10 years ago. But with all the online goodness comes a lot of badness for the hifi shops where an "audio life" changing experience awaits. High end is hurting now more than ever.


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## nova (Apr 30, 2006)

What I find interesting is the fairly recent trend toward narrow baffle designs (well it fits within the last 30 years). Wonder how much of that is for aesthetics? My understanding is it improves imaging but not much else, sounds like we'd be better off with the big old fashioned wide baffle speakers... or would we?


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

I think the reason is aesthetic. A trick of the eye maybe? I feel like personally the imaging thing is possibly sight induced. The effects of diffraction from a wide baffle can be fixed with good waveguides/tweeter bezels, and phase plugs. Long live monkey coffins!!!


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## Ayreonaut (Apr 26, 2006)

The sound of box speakers has certainly plateaued. I heard the Linkwitz Orions a few years ago and they are in a different class. Mainstream manufacturers should explore more options and stop just fine tuning the monkey coffins.


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## shkumar4963 (Nov 16, 2014)

I feel bad for speaker manufacturers. Think about it. You are in an industry that has matured and further improvements in sound quality are minimal. And most people listen to their music using a headphone and an iphone.

On top of that old speakers don't easily die requiring owners to purchase new ones. And this creates a healthy supply of used but perfectly good speakers. So how to increase sales and profits in this market?

The only way to increase sales now is to go for aesthetic improvements and marketing led demand generaton. Marketing costs money so speakers prices need to be raised. So they need to spend money on paid reviews like in Stereophile and others and then maintain high prices to project high quality. One outcome of this strategy is the popularity of small online speaker manufactures and DIY kits that produce speakers or very similar quality (without the looks and the brand name) as more expensive speakers. They don't have money to pay Stereophile but many forums talk about these speakers as having similar or better quality than speakers reviewed by Stereophile. They often offer home trials so that customers can see for themselves.

Aesthetics is also driving towards small size thus popularity of book shelf and satellite speakers. Narrow speakers are also to address aesthetics.

Other outcome of this situation is that companies are offering stands, cables, conditioners and other accessories that do not make any difference in sound quality at exorbitant margins. Stands that cost 20 dollars to make are selling at $400 dollars.


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## shkumar4963 (Nov 16, 2014)

One area where I feel significant progress will be made will be in active speakers. 

Here is why I think so.

Passive cross overs are a big cause of discontinuities in a speaker. That is why it is hard to make more than 3 way speakers sound better. With class D amplifiers improving in quality and drastic reduction in their prices, it is now possible to use separate amps for each speaker driver and then use DSP based cross overs to seperate signal to each driver before amplification.

This will remove phase shift problems, power inefficiencies of xovers, and allow us to customize drivers for narrow frequency bands thus creating. better drivers. 

Room correction using DSP will be a free option for these speakers.


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

When it came time to replace my old Pioneer HPM 100's (bought in 1979 ish) I was very surprised how much I had to spend to get equal/marginally better sound quality.
Maybe if inflation is taken into account its the same but I was still very surprised by the $$.


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

Ayreonaut said:


> The sound of box speakers has certainly plateaued. I heard the Linkwitz Orions a few years ago and they are in a different class. Mainstream manufacturers should explore more options and stop just fine tuning the monkey coffins.


 they look amazing to me. I'd love to see what they can do. They're almost Picasso-esque. Exactly why I think most WAF 's would take a .50 cal to them. Personally I feel the best compromise comes from cabs with tapered sides. This helps alleviate the standing wave problem, and the box sound to a point. Very slenderizing too! Lol


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

shkumar4963 said:


> One area where I feel significant progress will be made will be in active speakers.


 I like that too. Seems like in the UK, active speakers are pretty popular. It makes a lot of sense.


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## Andre (Feb 15, 2010)

I think the difference is in what we expect them to do no as compared to then. I had some Bose 901 hanging from chains in the ceiling listen to Frank Zappa on an LP (and not a Fancy player, Technics with the strobie platter... ). And it sounded super because we weren't expecting 20-20khz out of the setup. Now with digital age, that same setup would sound Horrid. I think the speakers have evolved with the source material


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## lcaillo (May 2, 2006)

I find that there are many many more very high quality speakers and drivers available these days compared to several decades ago. Are the very best better? Probably not as much so as the difference in sound quality at lower price ranges.


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## GCG (Aug 22, 2013)

My mains are from 1978. Can't find any today that sound as good that I care to pay for.:spend: As for the narrow baffle designs they've led to improvements in X-over design to compensate for baffle stop loss. I learned more about that when I built the Zaphs that I gave to my son.


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## tesseract (Aug 9, 2010)

Just within the last decade or so, advancements in computer aided design for motors, crossovers and cabinets, and measurements such as Klippel have helped drop loudspeaker distortions significantly.


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

tesseract said:


> Just within the last decade or so, advancements in computer aided design for motors, crossovers and cabinets, and measurements such as Klippel have helped drop loudspeaker distortions significantly.


 hypercube, I think these are good points. Agreed!


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## chrisletts (Oct 16, 2014)

I've not yet found a replacement for my 12 year old KEFs that sounds significantly better.

I have the impression that todays speakers sound different, and I suspect that's because our sources and formats are different (HQ downloads at one end, mp3 at the other)


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## NBPk402 (Feb 21, 2012)

I am using old speakers and have found a renewed interest in my CDs from the 80s... I have found songs from the old CDs that sound better than a lot of the newer recordings. I think a lot of the songs (newer ones) are mixed for car radios. I say this because they sound great in the car, but when you play them on a good system they sound horrible where as the older CDs in general sound good, and some sound Great.


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## shkumar4963 (Nov 16, 2014)

You may be right. When LP were used the noise was often significant and so a very detailed and accurate speaker would probably sound bad.


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## GCG (Aug 22, 2013)

shkumar4963 said:


> You may be right. When LP were used the noise was often significant and so a very detailed and accurate speaker would probably sound bad.


It's obvious you have never heard a clean LP played on a quality turntable with a comparable cartridge, system and speakers. I only hope heaven sounds as good.


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## shkumar4963 (Nov 16, 2014)

GCG said:


> It's obvious you have never heard a clean LP played on a quality turntable with a comparable cartridge, system and speakers. I only hope heaven sounds as good.


I did not mean that no one had clean LP. but speaker manufacturers had to think about the vast number of people who would be using their speakers with LPs. And it is well documented that average LP playback in 80s had lower signal to noise ratio than than today's digital recording. Do you disagree?


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## GCG (Aug 22, 2013)

Average? Perhaps. There has always been a market for marginal quality at a lower cost and always will be. At my stage in life I tend to try to filter the majority of that out. There is also evidence, albeit some anecdotal, that the best vinyl quality surpasses present CDs; many of the reports coming from industry professionals with long standing reputations for both talent and honesty. This is supported, in part, by the resurgence in vinyl's popularity. It'd be interesting to see if this resurgence sparks new speaker innovation or highlights innovations currently in play.


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## Talley (Dec 8, 2010)

shkumar4963 said:


> You may be right. When LP were used the noise was often significant and so a very detailed and accurate speaker would probably sound bad.





GCG said:


> It's obvious you have never heard a clean LP played on a quality turntable with a comparable cartridge, system and speakers. I only hope heaven sounds as good.


I couldn't tell you the brand of turntable but I do know my uncle spent 30K on his table not to mention the outboard power supply and phono preamp etc. He has a VERY high end system however he uses his 20 year old Apegy speakers.

He also has a $1,000 LP cleaner and his collection of music is 80% LP. I've listened to it and personally would vouch that there are very clean LP and...

music reproduction is as only as good as it's recording. Yes... it takes GOOD recorded music to sound good on a good system. You can really distinguish a recording and most these days are just that.


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