A nice set of ADS 810s on the right stands has always stood out for me. A well re-done set of Dahlquist DQ-10s are still hard to beat for the price, if you can stand the noise of a (I believe) Phillips piezo tweeter.
That was when I was doing a lot of listening (couldn't afford to buy anything!)and there were lots of decent shops. So much of the 70's stuff, like the large Advents, AR's, etc., which was also really nice, had rolled off highs as part of their design, often beginning at 11K, with 13k and up just MIA.
The Dahlquist and ADS of that era had nice, tight bass and (more)extended highs. They didn't "build down" to filter out signal to noise issues from poor recordings, gross solid state, etc. I'm sure there are a ton of other good ones, but these stick in mind 35 years later.
I like Lowthers too. They've been on the market for about 50 years, but I wouldn't put old SS in front of them: the mid-range issues are painful to imagine. Maybe Tannoy (too costly), but with a subdued treble (still?).
REmember, this was the era of (Boston v. West Coast) distictive voicings and JBL L-100s and so forth, so you can find some real "interesting" and amusical noisemakers in a box.
No, I'm not the guy selling the 810 set here on Agon.
