[vvillena]

A high end amp+speaker system from 50 years ago will still sound good. The tradeoffs back then were size, price, and power consumption. Same as now.

Lower spec speakers have become good enough, and DSP has improved to the point that tiny speakers can now output mediocre/acceptable sound. The effect of this is that the midrange market is kind of gone, replaced with neat but still worse products such as soundbars (for AV use) or even portable speakers instead of hi-fi systems.

On the high end, I think amplified multi-way speakers with active crossovers are much more common now thanks to advances in Class-D amplifiers.

[lotsofpulp]

I feel like an Apple TV plus 2 homepod minis work well enough for 90% of people’s viewing situations, and Apple TV plus 2 homepods for 98% of situations. That would cost $330 to $750 plus tax and less than 5 minutes of setup/research time.

The time and money cost of going further than that is not going to provide a sufficient return on investment except to a very small proportion of people.