vintage versus modern speakers

On the question of best speakers for $1500, unfortunately that is not a lot to get into really good towers, and American made doesn't make it any easier.

With a big amp like the SAE, if the OP could stretch his budget to $2000, Ascend Acoustics is an American company that has been making excellent speakers for over a decade, based in California. Their Sierra Tower is right up there with Salk speakers(also American), but more affordable. I just bought their Sierra 2 bookshelf speaker and I am seriously impressed.

Wow, that was quite a post!

I did a comparison of my own with a higher end Denon avr(3801) in 2 channel mode. I compared some 80's -90's speakers from Paradigm, polk audio, Mission, Boston Acoustics and Mirage. These were all just popular speakers that retailed for under 1000 except the Missions.

I've also got some almost new Tannoy DC 4 with the dual concentric drivers, mind you in a 4" version. They sounded better than all of them in the mids and highs reproduction. The Bostons sounded best with 80's rock, but with all of them the inner detail, the finer resolution was not there. The Missions were simply too bright for me.

I would submit that maybe you could get speakers back in the day with equivalent sound reproduction of today's better speakers. But now you can get that for a lot less money due to better manufacturing technology and materials.

And a 20-30 yr old speaker is going to develop issues with foam rot or crossovers. Most people are not speaker repair technicians.

I'll guess we'll have to disagree then. The modern woofer/driver has long throw movement that wasn't possible in the 70's. Expensive designs have become cheap to manufacture, and improvements have trickled down to budget lines. The cone materials today can be stiffer, lighter, and therefore faster. Cabinets can be engineered by computer with programming that's done faster and better than any old school methods.

How long are the caps in a 30 yr old speaker going to last? Is it still even running within spec? In the 30 years, how often has it been abused? I've refoamed several speakers and it's not the easiest to do. Like I said, most people are not speaker technicians.

I think some are simply used, familiar and accustomed to the sound characteristics of their old school speakers. Anything new will of course be different, and immediately viewed as inferior.

Bomb, at the end of the day, your following comment says all one needs to know about your bias.

I've owned a few modern day speakers & if I find one today that sounds like real music, I wouldn't hesitate to buy it….

So let's see. New cars are better than the 30 yr old technology auto. Computers are much better, televisions, washing machines, power tools, battery technology, tennis rackets, jets, and on and on the list goes.

But speakers, they haven't bested those heady days in the 70's/80's/pick your decade. Excuse me for smiling up my sleeve.

I know. Myself I prefer the lovely Chevy Vega over these silly modern technology autos. I've tried simply HUNDREDS of cars, and absolutely nothing can compare with my amazingly sounding Vega. It's got the bucket seats, and AM radio and white wall tires and a 4 speed manual transmission.

People can get used to and prefer anything. And no one is saying that all new speakers are great, folks. But amazing engineers dedicating their lives to what they love, with the amassed knowledge from the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, and the power of the computer for theorizing, testing, measuring, etc, all add up to the potential to build an amazing speaker. Today's $3000 speaker can sound excellent. $5000? $10,000? $20,000 speakers? I know I haven't tried them all. Are those of you knocking all modern speakers telling me you've tried them all? Because I'll call you a liar.

Now new good quality speakers are going to sound different than your speakers from the 60s or 80s. No doubt. And this is where the knee jerk reaction happens. It's different therefore it's worse. You don't remember your fave music sounding like that, so how dare they build a speaker that messes with your religious experience?

What you may be used to is simply inferior sound. You're stuck there and happy. You couldn't imagine that your speakers and or ancient gear(not even in spec anymore) is coloring the sound. Stay there if you want, knock yourself out. But don't expect everyone to not get a puzzled look in their eye when you start talking about your amazing Vega again.

Not sure why it matters to you, but by the end of the 80's I remember seeing some at over $50,000. Grabbing 20 year old speakers from the 90's might be fine for a while, but will they soon develop foam rot? When will the caps in the crossover start to go? I'd suggest something a decade newer, after computer design became more common.

The $20,000 number might have come from me as I don't see it in the OP posts at all. As for foam surrounds, Paradigm still used them in their Performance line well into the 90's. I'm not sure when Boston Acoustics moved away from them, but their whole A series used them.

I've heard of some apples to oranges comparison before, but that takes the cake,