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

Dunlavy.

Had the chance to snap up a pair of Equation 7 speakers a few years back. The original owner proclaimed they were "Harbeth Killers". Tall order but I was actually using 7es 2 so thought they must be something worth grabbing. Was told they should run with tube gear, of which I have plenty so took them home, plugged them and gave then a shot. Beutiful speakers in Spanish Birdseye Maple finish but I really wasn't expecting them to outplay the Harbeths. Wow, I was wrong. Simple two way with HQ drivers and a hand spun crossover. Actually the entire package was hand made in Belgium. I play them with better tube gear front to back and still haven't found a speaker I enjoy as much. These were $3K in 2003 and are now up on 20yo but they are special speakers. If you spot a set in the used market (maybe $14-$1500) I suggest you buy them especially if you like Spendor, Harbeth, Falcon and the like. The Equations do everything right in a med size space. Image like champs, unpack all the music throw a nice balanced sound stage; very nice. Just my opinion.  

I’m not saying because I just discovered 6 yrs ago the greatest speaker ever made at any price after spending 500k on audio and are still in another league under 20k and blows away the best today at any price but are hard to find used and I want another pair so I’ll keep them a secret 

Thiel 3.7s certainly hold their own.  

I do not think anyone has mentioned the Rogers LS3 5A, the little speaker that could. If you have never heard these with properly integrated subwoofers you have no idea what you are missing. We had these set up next to a huge pair of Dunlavys. People routinely would think it was the Dunlavys playing! 

@patrickdowns @phusis 

And that sirs is the trap. What a system and room looks like and what it sounds like are two entirely different issues. I have heard really tricked out systems/rooms sound like crap. This is not to say Mike's room does not sound good but he does stubbornly refuse to make it sound better over the romantic concept that he has to keep everything analog. It is interesting to see the contrast between Mike and myself, also a Mike. We are polar opposites in so many ways. I am line source Dipole, Mike is Big point source. Mike will spend huge money, I will approach it from a value perspective. Mike has everything on display. I have as much as possible hidden. There is no cable visible until you look behind the speakers. The amps are below in my basement shop. My room is rather plain, I can not stand anything rattling. The only commonality I can see is we both use 8 woofer drivers and both rooms were purpose designed for audio.  It would be a lot of fun to take people blindfolded into both rooms, play the same program and see which system they liked better. 

There are two diseases that audiophiles routinely catch for which there is no vaccine. There is the Mark Levinson disease, if it costs more it must sound better and the Dan D'Agostino disease, if it looks cool it must sound better.