Yeah, there’s a good chance your B&W from the 80s sound better than any of Sonos’s speakers, and perhaps even better than modern B&W (since in modern B&W regressed to less neutral speakers to demo a more sparkly sound in showrooms, even though it limits their versatility of optimal music). I’m completely with you about disliking this modern trend of disposable and brick-able “internet required” speakers combined with modern software culture’s bizarre love for this “service” model where you are expected to perpetually accept OTA updates to keep using your product — mandatory OTA updates that are only good until the company behind them stops caring about old products they’re no longer making money off of, and decides to brick or cripple them.

But regarding speakers: There have definitely been advancements in modern speaker design. Probably the biggest advancement is the state-of-the-art science of psycho-acoustics, developed by the Canadian National Research Council, and later continued by the research division of Harman International. The results of this research has directly lead to better speakers by Harman Intl. companies (Revel, JBL, etc.) and throughout much (but not all) of the speaker industry.

Psycho-acoustics informs speaker engineers how to objectively measure flaws in a speaker in ways that go far beyond an old fashioned on-axis frequency response plot (which tells you nearly nothing): measuring FR and others in a densely sampled sphere surface around a speaker in an anechoic chamber has been shown to provide almost all the info you need to evaluate and design a speaker.

The end result of this is pretty amazing speakers for great prices. A $500 pair of JBL 308p Mk II will probably get you 80% of the way to audio perfection for most people, for example. A Neumann KH120A ($1300/pair) will get you maybe 90% to perfection[1], though at the expense of some bass extension which you may want to complement with a subwoofer.

And then we have some exotic speaker designs made affordable; for example, you can get speakers with a RAAL Ribbon Tweeter from Ascend Acoustics which will blow away any other modern speaker costing 2-3x as much. A $2k - $3k speaker and subwoofer system from Ascend+Rythmik[2] will probably get you to 99% of the best sound quality in the world.

For example, I’ve owned Bowers and Wilkins 702 S2 before discovering the science and innovations of some exotic components like the RAAL tweeter. This research later lead me to buy Ascend Sierra RAAL Towers, which while costing significantly less than the B&W 702 S2 sound many times better. (Bowers and Wilkins intentionally choose to ignore the science). The difference (to my ears) is truly astounding — the Ascends are truly in another league of quality and realism. And, the versatility improvement of neutral (flat frequency response, on and off axis) speakers over colored ones is amazing if you like listening to a wide range of music.

[1] https://en-de.neumann.com/kh-120-a-g

The Neumann KH120A is probably the most amazing sounding compact speaker I have ever heard. It is seriously mind blowing how amazing such a small speaker sounds, and how much quality bass it can put out. It also has some of the most impressively perfect scientific measurements I’ve ever seen (which you can review on the link above in the “data and diagrams” section).

The only thing better is Ascend’s speakers with RAAL tweeters, or Genelec pro monitors (which are quite overpriced).

[2] Example: Ascend Sierra Luna pair + Rythmik F12 will probably get you to 98% of audio perfection:

http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/speakers/luna/...
http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/subs/f12se.htm...