Innovation and the High End ... ?

The audio family at home, might choose to spin a record (LP standard launched in 1948, stereo about a decade later), play a CD (1982), or playback a digital file (c1996) as they settle in for the evening.  For us, we tend towards solid state amplification (c1955), but there is nothing wrong with vacuum tubes (c1920).  We have a dynamic speaker (c1930) but we know that electrostatic (c1955), ribbons (c1960-1970) or horns (c1920) could be there, too.

While you could go through the house and do a similar exercise and see that most things in a house aside form the structure itself, are from the 20th and 21st century. Most of the basic technology found in a house was developed before 1970, if not before World War II.

But ... given how white hot the electronics sector has been since World War II (really since before World War I actually!), it is a little surprising that a domestic setup to listen to music is mostly unchanged over that time.  A stereo system in 1957 is more or less the same as in 2015, save the addition of digital as a source.  Certainly the record player, speakers and amplification would be usable and useful in either era.  Try that with a computer!

The amplifier, turntable, and speakers may more or less be the same over the decades, what about CD and digital?  That's the roiling waters of change, right?

The largest changes in how we listen to music has been with sources.  CD started the digital era in 1982, and while it did become a dominant media, and is giving way to downloads and streaming of compressed files, has only offered a clear step forward in convenience.  Even when you factor out people who simply do not like change, the victory of CD in sound quality has been debatable.  The fact there is some debate at all, really speaks to the marginality of improvement to be had*.  And the whole vinyl revival springs from the squandering of the potential of CD in the loudness wars and digital downloads (article here about how vinyl is now pulling in more revenue than all the ad-based "free" streaming combined).  I will also note, that even the lower quality but highly convenient MP3 was a standard completed in 1992 ... 23 years ago at the writing of this entry.  The point?  Audio quality improvements for the end-user has largely stagnated with the high water mark of the LP (67 years), or if you feel that digital is a step ahead (it should be, but has been squandered largely by the recording industry) then it is either stagnant for 15-33 years depending upon which digital standard you'd like to hang your hat on.

State of the Art, c 1928, but useful c2015

What does this have in
common with audio?

I suppose on one hand you could argue that in an era of massive choices for entertainment, audio plays a less central role as it once did (The way we listen is changing, but still is a lot), so the investment, and employment has moved on to other things.  But there might be more to it than that.  It could be that the antique technologies we still use today, are becoming like mechanical watches:  refinement over breakthroughs, and while the gains will be impressive given time, it will be incremental driven by other fields and technologies cross fertilizing audio rather than audio driving to better means and methods directly.
But the good news would be, a good sounding piece of gear whose wagon isn't hooked up to the star of a rapidly changing adjacent field (I'm looking at YOU Computers, USB, Ethernet and networking) isn't going to be obsolete any time soon.  It also offers some rare opportunities to go "retro" without large compromises, too -- which clearly fuels some in this arena.

I suppose in many ways, a stereo fan really does rescue the things of value, dusts them off, makes them beautiful and (hopefully) keeps them forever.  And that's not a bad thing at all.

*Sticklers might point out that the state of the art of recording technology has changed in the post-production with all the fancy digital tools available, and that microphones, and the actual recording setups hasn't changes all that much either.  We'd agree.  And that is part of the limiting factor that drives stagnation.  Producers and engineers have tools available to them to be able to far more than they could.  And they use and abuse them.  And when you listen to the final product, sometimes a simple not-very-engineered recording blows the doors off of a recording with all kinds of digital "help" that's available.  I do believe in technology, and do beleive that the tools can and do offer lots of ways to "save" a poor take.  But the resulting music quality is not head and shoulders higher.  You can listen to a LP or reel to reel tape of a band playing in 1957 and be impressed that something nearly 60 years old sounds so good.  If you went back even 20 years earlier, you'd be listening to 78's and the sound quality improvement would be clear.