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Nothing new under the sun?

Reading all the material available on audio, there seems to be fairly widely divergent opinions about how much progress we're making, about whether anything truly new is coming about, or whether it's all just marketing.

On the one hand, you read constant reviews, both professional and personal, detailing how the new speaker takes the listener places they've never been before. "Performance like this cost 10X the price just a few years ago", or was unavailable, etc. Not just speakers, any component. The implication is that major strides are being made and the result is much lower prices for much higher performance.

An alternative view is that there is nothing new under the sun, just slick marketing. With this view, you can buy some excellent equipment from the last 20 years, get great sound, and never look back because nothing being put out today performs signicantly better.

Which is it? Should we all just admit that what we have today isn't going to be bettered any time soon and find another hobby?

kthomas
unsound
6,115 posts
 
Improved digital formats, digital upsampling, digital crossovers, digital amplifiers, digital room correction, digital equalization,digital broadcasts, digital recording and digital connections are all new ( in the big scope of things) and exciting developments. With true omni-directional speaker drivers perhaps we can overcome what was once theoreticaly imposible, acurate surround sound. It just might inspire more people to express their creative selves again ( Am I the only one who remembers when preamps had microphone inputs).If only the manufacturers weren't so greedy and actually provided a compatible and finished product that didn't discourage people from investing in the next obsolete product.
jeffloistarca
1,004 posts
 
Sean, your post intrigues me. This is not a challenge in any way, I'm really curious. How do you feel passive components have improved over the last twenty years? It seems to me that a resistor is a resistor is a ...
Materials haven't changed a whole lot but I will grant you the testing has made some progress. Do you find measurable differences between today's caps, and those of a few years ago? Has leakage improved somehow? Do the caps somehow settle quicker? Being a semiconductor guy I've always taken passive components for granted, maybe I'm missing something? Appreciate you taking the time to enlighten us, Jeff
garfish
1,840 posts
 
Good post Unsound. There is much happening in the world of digital-- guess I needed reminding. I just hope that some of it really is to the benefit of best quality music that us audiogeeks seek. Cheers. Craig
bishopwill
369 posts
 
I tend to agree with Sean that we're making incremental refinements, in good part due to component improvements. This is certainly true in the digital domain.

IMO, 90% of the overall improvement in mid-to-high end sound in the past 20 years has come from speaker technology and not from electronics.

Will
viridian's avatar
viridian
4,184 posts
 
I think that your post brings up a very important point and that is that audiophiles are fixated on new technologies and technical breakthroughs when, in fact, some of the greatest progress is as a result of refinement. Passive parts, resistors, capacitors, wire, potentiometers have all made great strides over the past few years, designers have learned more about proper grounding, there is so much refinement going on throughout the industry and yet the magazines and manufacturers have us focused on the next breakthrough. We really can't see the forrest for the trees.
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