It's reasonable for the average person to assume that hi-fi gear has also improved over the years, but that isn't entirely true. Although the audio industry has made strides in eliminating tonal distortions and in creating for the listener a more exciting spatial presentation of recorded sound, to me early playback equipment endures in sounding far more tactile, dramatic, and colorful. In those respects, contemporary gear has not only failed to hold its ground since 1962, it has markedly declined.
In other consumer industries, developmental gains appear to come at relatively little cost. In the quest for cars that are safer, faster, and more comfortable, fuel efficiency hasn't merely remained steady: It has improved, along with everything else. Yet audio engineers often seem no better at banishing distortions than I am at shooing flies out of the house: They can't get rid of one without letting in another. Amplifier designers sacrifice immediacy and speed for power, phonograph designers sacrifice musical dynamics for low tracking force, and loudspeaker designers swap efficiency for extended bass and treble.
Think of it: A loudspeaker's most fundamental task is to convert electricity into sounda task at which the average new model fails more resoundingly with each passing year. What the hell kind of progress is that?
