Do my ears deceive me??

Speakers have made tremendous advancement in the last 20 years, as have electronics. But not all folks want different. If you are really happy with the sound of what you had, then maybe just stick with it.

Alternatively, you could go audition systems in some high end audio stores. Don’t be concerned with price. See if anything blows you away. If it does… look down the speaker companies product range to your budget. Do those sound fantastic? If not. Just enjoy your system.

Pursuing the high end is expensive and not for everyone.

@mofojo ”In what way have speakers had a tremendous advancement in the last 20 years,… Your Sonus Fabers are all paper driver… nothing new.?”

In sound quality performance. Saying Sonus Faber speakers use paper cones is a gross abstraction. It is like saying how a 286 PC chip no different than a contemporary PC chip… they are both on silicon substrate. The amount of technology is in the design and execution.

If you listen to a 20 year old set of say $20K speakers versus a contemporary set of same priced (in dollars corrected to 2003 dollars) the difference in sound quality is simply striking… tighter bass, better imaging, better more real sounding treble. In all components. For example, I remember replacing my 15 year old Threshold amp with a contemporary Pass amp… my jaw just dropped, very similar specifications, similar weight, form factor, but the sound quality nearly brought tears to my eyes.

This is the way to evaluate advancement in high end audio… listen to it. If you listen to it and you are not blown away, that is great… keep what you have. But, when you listen to what is now possible versus 20 years ago and want better more realistic sound, the case for new stuff that caters to your values in sound is overwhelmingly compelling.

@soix 

+1