are 4000$ /pr speakers today better than $4000/pr speakers from mid to late 1990's?

Yes without a doubt......

No. $4000 speakers from a quarter century ago would be about seven grand today.

My kef r105/3 circa 1990 listed for $3500.  Played flat 50-15k 3” Thick front baffle, 93 dB eff, excellent dispursion and went LOUD. Detail, soundstage and imaging still benchmark. I would have to spend 4 times as much for the same product today and the only difference would be automotive finish instead of walnut.

Old speakers would have gone through some extent of deterioration such as foam surrounds or internal, capacitors in the crossover etc. Personally I wouldn't consider speakers that are more than 20 years old.

@gdnrbob — I’m just going by what I hear.  I never liked the metal dome tweets and yellow Kevlar drivers used by B&W in the 90’s and beyond, and I find the Diamond tweeters and Continuum drivers to sound much cleaner and better as implemented in the current D3 models.  I’m not really a B&W fan, but I could live with the current 804 D3 and could definitely not say the same of the earlier 804N models.  Likewise, and as per the OP’s original question, I’d absolutely take a pair of 805 D3s over a 90’s era 803N.  That’s kinda where I was coming from FWIW, but to each his own.  

Metal dome tweeters seem to sound less harsh but no less precise in current speakers than what I remember from speakers in the 90s.

wow so here's some comments directly related to my post: in a 2015 review of paradigm prestige speakers.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/paradigm-prestige-95f-loudspeaker

thanks all, great comments to let sink in for a while.  i'm sure it does depend, but i'm also pretty sure that design, approach, materials have gotten a lot better. throwing price in there can mux it up. that 705 review did have a lot of interesting comments!  some sad but who knows.

I like this^^^^. I did start buying up class A speakers from the 90's since they're finally affordable and reviewers of that time could really write a story. The more exotic the speakers get the more finicky they get regarding amplification so it's very possible a properly matched system from the 90's could out perform a state of the art speaker from today unless you're able to keep working to find the right components. The amp I bought that transformed the Salon 1 didn't perform the same magic on the salon 2 so even though the reviewer said the salon 2 was better in every way, in my system, n ot so much. Have fun and buy used.

speaker design has advanced a lot, materials got better but i feel that in many modern cases tuning is missing.
G

@soix ,
Have you read the latest Stereophile review of the B&W 705?
There are some interesting comments regarding old and new  BandW's.
B

Here is something interesting. In the last ten years i have owned Devore, Audio Note, Harbeth, B&W, KEF, Tekton DI`s and Magico speakers with prices ranging from 4k to 19k and while all were good to very good i was never 100% happy. Recently i came across a nice pair of Wilson Watt Puppy 5.1`s for 4k and i will tell you in my home and paired to my system the 20 year old 4k(todays used price) Wilsons out perform all of the above mentioned speakers.

I know 20 years ago the Wilsons were something like 17k but at todays used prices they are out performing some of todays new 17k speakers.

Specifically to B&W I’d unequivocally say buy the newer speakers.  I find their newest tweeter and midrange drivers to be far superior to those of 90s vintage. 

 Inflation!
The U.S. dollar experienced an average inflation rate of 2.09% per year during this period, causing the real value of a dollar to decrease. In other words, $4,000 in 2000 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $6,045.99 in 2020, a difference of $2,045.99 over 20 years. The 2000 inflation rate was 3.36%.

The roughly $4k Moabs I just bought are way better than the $16k speakers from the 90's they replaced. Not even close.

Bear in mind the Tekton MTM speakers are exceptional value. But I would be shocked if even average $4k speakers today aren't much better than the best from back then. You are after all talking 30 years. It would be incredible if they haven't gotten a lot better.

The answer is easy. It depends. 

YES.

In general, speakers are going to be a lot different.

The tonal balance is different, the 2.4 kHz drop is going to be absent, and the ability to consistently find outstanding tweeter performance for cheap is a lot better.  Fast tweeters with limited energy storage flat past 20 kHz are now the norm.