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

I am still very happy with my Aerial Acoustics 10T v2 and my Dunlavy SC3`s. All powered by BAT VK-5i and a VK-250 ss amp with Bat-Pak.  For me to try to seriously upgrade to where it`s like listening to a whole new audio experience is way to expensive. All audio quest cables with DBS.  If you can connect to the music emotionally and just love your listening sessions DO NOTHING just enjoy. Do have you amps and pre amps serviced, cleaned and re`capped as needed.

                                          VIVA LA BAT and Victor and Steve

@daveyf 

It seems we are always destined to do that.

@phusis 

No, you correct it as much as you can especially if the irregularity is only in one channel. It is not so important that the amplitude curve is perfectly flat, it is important that the two channels are perfectly identical, or as close as possible.

And just how are you correcting amplitude 1 Hz at a time? It is not down the road for me. You can do it in an automated fashion or manually including programing delays. I start with automated then fine tune manually. I find it best to program for flat then overlay my own preference target curves which were constructed by ear. 

Efficiency is nice if you want to use small amplifiers. Personally, I do not care about it. I prefer to look at the type of loudspeaker. You like horns, I prefer ESLs which admittedly are not efficient @ 86 dB. But, since I remove 100 Hz down from them they go louder than ---- , which is all I really care about, the ability of a system to reach realistic volume levels. Back in the day speakers like the EV Patrician and the KlipschHorn were SOTA as the most powerful amp we had was 70 watts/ch. The Marantz Model 9 comes to mind. Then came the hideous Crown Stereo 150 followed by the Fuzzlinear 700, somewhat better than the Crown, but..... These initial SS amps were the reason people stuck resolutely with tubes. Some hangovers are hard to get rid of. At any rate with the amps we have today efficiency is not an issue. It only determines volume per watt and not sound quality.  

Von Schweikert VR 4 HSE - still sound wonderful. I gave them to my son so I have a chance to listen when I visit him. I always thought they were equal to or better than the Wilson Maxx especially considering the price difference. 

Great post and totally agree! I currently have Revel Performa F228Be. They are breathtaking. But honestly, nothing I've heard or have owned since back in 2001 has come close to Dynaudio Audience 82's. I had to sell my entire rig after my divorce in 2004 and have since gotten back into the game. I started with Dynaudio (started with Emit, then Excite, then Evoke), yet none of them gave me the same magic that Audience did. Evoke came the closest. I finally heard Revel and my ears decided that was the direction to go. But Audience 82 were just pure magical. No other way to describe them...I'll always miss and remember them. They were the first speakers that truly "disappeared". I'll never ever forget that first moment I sat down for that first critical listen at homer after running them in for 1 week....WOW...wow....Have had many amazing moments in my second go round, but never had that "wow" moment like I did with my Audience 82's...

I've had really good systems and when times were tough, a boom box. The best system I had back in the 70's was a Setton preamp and power amp PS5500 with built in fader mixer & BS5500, a dual mono block, with LR power switches. A pair of ESS AMT 1's, Teac R/R, Sharp Cassette deck with auto search stop & play, and an SL1200 with an AT Shibata stylus. The ESS were ahead of their time and no longer in business today, but their AMT tweeter is being used in many of today's high-end speakers after their patten timed out. Really miss those speakers. Today I have a Pr of Wilson Sabrina's that image like a Mo Fo in 3D sound being driven by a pr of PS Audio Steller M1200's. It's my last system, a Simaudio Moon 350P, PS Audio M1200s, Parasound JC3 Jr, VPI Aries TT w/ Hanna ML low, OPPO BDP-105, Schitt Audio Bitfrost 2/64, Lokius 6 band EQ, Wilson Audio Sabrinas, and an SVS Ultra 16 Subwoofer. I find buying used gets a greater system for the money than new.