Peter,What advances and what finished products? Can you give specific examples and not be so vague?
You were a Magico owner and this is a Magico thread - I will just refer to the carbon nanotube technology used in Magico cones. Or modern electrostatics - many do not use the old coatings - they use sputtering techniques to make the Mylar partially conductive.
The studies concerning resonance and delayed resonamces of modern synthetic materials used in speaker enclosures were only possible using digital measuring equipemnt - they could not be carried using just tube osciloscopes and generators. Creating such enclosures is a technological event. It is just becoming more common due to the wide use of accessible virtual instruments.