Speakers 10 years old or older that can compete with todays best,

Very interesting thread. Particularly appropriate to me, as only yesterday i visited a dealer who's system was what he felt to be excellent sounding. Yet, and here's the thing, this system was a disappointment to me. Not because it did not have some good gear in it, but because the system was put together with the typical mistakes that someone who thinks they really know what they are doing, yet disregard the very basic things that separate a great sounding system from a  mediocre sounding one. For example, no consideration given to cabling, no consideration given to room acoustic treatments, no consideration give to the importance of speaker placement, and so on. One thing i have learned in this hobby over the years, is this, no matter what the listener's experience level is, the dealer always believes he/or she ( not many ladies in this scenario) has more expertise than the customer. 

@mikelavigne  You are a highly experienced a'phile, why would someone believe that they could improve your system, without a) first listening to it and then b) believe that their knowledge would trump yours??...I don't really understand this attitude from several members who have posted upstream. To these very same members, i would ask this question: Is it possible that in fact someone like Mike L could have a superior sounding system to yours...and not only that, have more experience/knowledge than you? 

I have wanted to ask this very same question to numerous dealers in this hobby, iow-- is it possible that the customer who just walked in the door, could in fact teach you something about not only system set up, but also about music itself?? 

To get back to the subject in the OP. are there speakers today that can compete with today's best? Absolutely, I think some of these speakers from the past have in fact never been bettered in some areas. Take for example, the Quad '57's. How many speakers on the market today can equal their mid-range reproduction, never mind beat them? Another example, the SF Guarneri Homage speakers that I utilize in my system, how many stand mounts can equal these today?? There are a few (maybe a handful that i know of)...but the vast majority of current stand mounts still cannot better them. 

There is a point made by RH in TAS that he recently heard the old Hill Plasmatronic speakers (with the ion tweeter), stating that the upper mids to highs were the best reproduction of these frequencies he had ever heard!! RH has heard a  lot of speakers....

So, to add to my last post...here is a question for the folks on this thread...

Is it possible that more experienced a'philes will have enough knowledge/experience of how to put together a system so that it has the least chance ( i'm not saying that all of these folks will not occasionally make mistakes and regress, but also not make obvious mistakes, like ignoring room acoustics, cabling, etc) of in fact going backwards as regards to SQ in their rooms/systems? 

@phusis One other thing i have also learned in this hobby is this: it is just as easy to go backwards in regards to SQ when you implement something into your system, as it is to go forwards...and many times, even easier!

Interestingly, the dealer I visited most recently utilizes a Linn turntable with the latest thinking by Linn on the interface between the table and the upstream phono stage. Their phono stage is now built into the table and called the Urika 2. This phono stage takes the analog signal and transforms it into the digital realm to send it upstream. Essentially, one listens to a digital signal when now playing the top flite LP12 Klimax model with Urika 2! On paper, this looks impressive, because not only is the signal taken immediately from the tonearm via a very short lead to the phono stage, but also the potential for loss of signal is now limited upstream, due to the digital conversion/aspect. Unfortunately, in real life, what I always hear when i hear this set up is the following...1) a severe lack of depth portrayal 2) a sheen that can only be considered as a digital artifact that pervades across the whole frequency spectrum and 3) a certain timbral aspect to the high frequencies that upon first listen is impressive, but actually wears on one as time progresses. My point here is that while Linn ( a well respected company within the a’phile community) believe that their way forward is superior to what has been done in the past, in my personal opinion, they have actually gone backwards. Is DSP the answer? Possibly in some systems, but I would say that an ’analog’ solution would be preferred firstly, if at all possible. At least to my ears, and IMHO.

@ghdprentice You ask why Linn went with the digital processing at the turntable.

I would say they did it because they probably believed it would sound better, and certainly on paper, this makes some sense. Now here’s the thing, if your reference for great sound quality is a DSD file or a system that really has flaws that you cannot recognize, due to your inexperience with what is possible, then I think your understanding of what is great SQ from a system will be based on that experience.
One of the things that I think a lot of folks get confused with, here and on other a’’phile sites,is what level of SQ the member is using as a reference? To that, their ability to delineate what they hear, or do not hear, seems to vary greatly.

At this point in time, I have to say that I think that Linn and their dealers ( this also applies to a number of other manufacturers and dealers as well, not just Linn) are somewhat unaware of what the top of the heap SQ sounds like from a super high end system. As such, their belief in what constitutes SOTA is in fact far off base.

@mijostyn   The discussion about whether a digital step in vinyl is audible or not is an old one. IME, I always prefer the 'purity' of a AAA source vs. a digital source. Digital has come a long way, but IME--and IMHO, it just is not quite there yet. YMMV.

@mijostyn   I think we will have to agree to disagree.