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

+1Avalon and Tidal. The Rockport Arrakis is definitely one as well. Not made any more and I haven’t heard it but they get immense praise on the forums. 

Lots I’m sure but Ohm Walsh series 3 and newer come to mind. Probably series 2 as well. It’s only the originals that came about in the early 80s that I can assert with confidence were not current big-league competitive. Those come up a bit short on resolution detail and accuracy. Many have been upgraded by users since which fixes that.

Comparing one’s own system to speakers heard at audio shows, stores, or even other people’s listening rooms is questionable at best. To know if some product might improve the SQ of one’s own system requires auditioning it at home for at least a week’s worth of critical listening.

That said, I own Von Schweikert, PSB and Magneplanar speakers (all full-range floor standers) and half a dozen lesser monitors; I’ve auditioned Martin Logan "The Quest" and three different iterations of B&Ws, each for weeks. Finally, friends in our local audio club have uncompromising rigs of various kinds: stacked Quads, Harbeths, Dynaudios, KEFs, MBL 101 Radialstrahlers in a specially constructed listening "room" built in consultation with an acoustician that is larger and more opulent than most people’s entire homes.... And yet, I have not found anything I prefer to my Scientific Fidelity "Teslas," built in the early 1990s. A bad review in Stereophile pretty much killed the company. Recently, Bill Legall at Millersound restored the drivers for me. They cost a mere $1000 in 1992 (I got them used), and they even look great. My second system has settled on the Magneplanar 1.6 QRs installed in an acoustically treated room just right for them, but the Teslas in my living room remain my favorites.

@mikelavigne ,

The Trinnov is fine for home theater. I looked carefully at the Amethyst but Its bass management is severely limited and it is not programmable at a level that is acceptable. I waited 3 years to see what DEQX was going to do making a PITA out of myself in the process as my old TacT processor was dying. It did three months ago. At any rate I will be getting one of the first units. The DEQX is far more powerful and flexible than the Trinnov. It will do everything I want and more. It is also obviously built as well or better than any other equipment on the market. The technology is so powerful now that you can make a system sound anyway you want within the limitations of your other equipment, the speaker/room being the most significant. You can not make a point source system sound like a linear array and vice versa.  

Mike, come on, every modern record and most of the rereleases you listen to are digitally modified. I just got a new pressing of Fontessa in mono (Modern Jazz Quartet) and the tape hiss is gone, disappeared. I wonder how that happened. All modern material with few exceptions are recorded digitally on a hard drive. I know that too many digital recordings are compressed into high volume pancakes. Vinyl is also to some degree to keep the volume above the noise floor. 

I just recently recorded an audiophile delite from a friends collection in 192//24 with digital RIAA correction. Nobody can reliably tell the difference between the original and the recording. It is a great way to get music that is no longer being produced. 

Speaker built in the mid to late 80s and now are modern designed speakers. We should discuss speaker built in the late 60s to the 80s.

Speakers Like: JBL, Bozak, Rectilinear, Klipsch, Macintosh. These speakers were another breed of designs. Example JBL had terrible crossover and were basically a Rheostat divider and the. One of the earliest good speakers were Duntec's.