Buy a pair of ten year old $40,000 speakers for $4,000 or new ones at that price point?

My B&W 801 Series 2's were $3500 in 1989, and considered near state-of-the-art.  I bought them in 1999 for $2200.  I've had them now for 20 years, and the drivers are all perfect, as far as I can tell.  The crossovers are another story.... Being a DIYer,  I've done many incremental upgrades over the years that have really improved them.  If they were still all original and 30yrs old, hard to say what these 4th-order crossovers would sound like.  My point is... I've tried many times to replace my 801's, and haven't found anything under $10k that really does it for me.  AND.... I can likely still sell them for around $2k if I wanted.... but I don't!  

There are truly some good deals to be had in the used speaker market.
I still have a pair of PSB Stratus Gold i, that I picked up used several years ago for about $1,200.00. I used them for a few years in my 2 chan. system and since, are the mains in my AV system. I like them, hands down, better than any of PSB's current line.
I may be old fashioned, but still prefer some of the old, vintage, high end speakers, over most of the new. I have yet to hear any speaker at any price sound more like live music than the Apogee, Duetta Sigs. of the late 80s, but then again - I am a bit bias towards all the old ribbons and stats.....Jim

I'm have some Apogee Duetta Signature speakers in mint condition they came out in July 1989 they cost 4000 then how much are they worth now

There was a pair of Raidho D5’s on sale used on another forum that sold for $17k!  4-5 year old speakers that retail for over $200k sold for less than the sale tax. Not only did they sell that cheap but they sat a bit. I had the money but I honestly don’t think those speakers are worth $17k let alone the $215,000 or whatever stupid price that company puts on their products.

A $40k pair for $4k? not if they’re crap.

While I honestly doubt you could find 40K speakers for 4K, I would say that speaker design hasn't advanced much (if at all) during the last 10 years, and I would remind you that something like a Siemens Bionor (old cinema speakers from the first half of the 20th century) are still considered by many to be state of the art, with some even claiming they're their favorite speaker system. The laws of physics haven't changed. 10 years is nothing regarding speakers. Now if we were talking about DACs or class D amps, it would be a different story.