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Old vs. New

I see a lot of threads on various audiophile forums that basically go like this: I sold my 5-6-10 year old speakers, amp etc. and bought new this or that and it kills the old stuff and sounds so much better.

I have listened to a lot of classic hi-end speakers, amps and preamps and also listen to a lot of FOTM stuff and to my ears a lot of the "old junk" sounds better, sometimes a lot better. Don't get me wrong a lot of the new gear on the market sounds very good.

So let me ask a question, why do so may people automatically assume that older gear sounds inferior to new stuff? Audio tech did not really changed that much in 10 y. We still have the same two ears now as we did 10 y ago? If something was good 10 years go why is it no good now?
128x128faust3d
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,678 posts
 
I do not want categorically dismiss quality vintage equipment but a significant part is bias based on long-term adaptation to old equipment.

Kal
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faust3d's avatar
faust3d OP
10 posts
 
"A warmer, romantic sounnd. Not very clear, nor pristine" - this is a very broad generalization. Take something like ProAc Response 2 for example. They are 22 years old now, and still sound good. As any mid-hight price monitor in the market today I would say. There are a lot of examples like this. I feel that this warm, romantic sound idea is a big misconception. I would hardly call TDL Studio 4 warm and romantic sounding ;o)
chadnliz
3,736 posts
 
IMO opinion speakers in particular are much better today than days of old. Remember those super wide, shallow depth kabuke speakers in 70s &80s? There were ofcourse good models from AR and others but 95% of them deserve their place in garages all across the world.....they were not that great. Amps, tuners, tables are to some degree a different story but I am a modern audio guy for sure.
frommerstop
38 posts
 
I think it depends on the component. For my money, speakers have not "improved" in the last 20 years or so. I'll hold my KEF 107/2s, or Quad ESL 63s against anything I've heard under $10k since their introductions. However some components have improved... especially if you go back 30+ years. Turntables for example, IMO there are more very good tables available now than during the seventies - the heyday of vinyl! Although I'm not a nut for high end interconnects, I have to admit those too have improved a lot. In general, I think the improvements since the mid eighties have been much smaller than those made in the twenty years before that. One area that has "improved" (if you can call it that), is in the VERY high end of the market... there I hear things I never heard before, but unfortunately $20k+ speakers & comparably pricy electronics are way off my radar, so irrelevant for me.I still love listening to the latest products, but I don't find too many major components pulling at me enough to change, as long as the "old stuff" is still performing as it should.

Cliff
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