It feels like speakers have gone up in price.

This is probably because their BOM is still highly dependent on physical enclosures, cones, and magnets, which can't be Moore's Law'd-away.

I can find some basic setups in the $300 range, but they're usually bookshelf or slim-floorstanding speakers where you're expected to add a subwoofer to fill out the bottom end, not a true full-range.