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

I've been trying out a used set of ProAc D25's about 15 years old now. I need a speaker to stand in while i look for something more permanent after selling my Spendor D9.2's. So I'm saving up for a while and thought the D25's would be a fine stand in for a year. They are quite nice if I was honest.

But I also have some vintage ADSL910's ( late 70's early 80's vintage) that have been restored by Richard So. Well after listening to the Proac's for a couple weeks I tossed in the big ADS and if I was honest I think I'd prefer the ADS as a stand in. They have better bass more detailed, deeper, faster. probably due to being sealed and 2x10" drivers. The midrange is actually better as well more presence, detailed and better dispersion. The only places the Proac's take the big ADS is the top end, it's more extended, detailed and the imaging is better but not by as much as you'd expect. I think the dome mids and tweeters in the ADS help quite a bit here.

The Proac's are lovely specially for the used prices but sound a bit boomy or maybe its a lift in the lower mid-bass that I'm hearing, I will say though the downward port is better in my room then rear ported designs. 

I'm on the fence to be honest, but there is some great vintage speakers out there you just need to restore them in most cases to get the most out of them. Also modern measurements can go a long way to bring back the sound specially if your doing a crossover rebuild already. 

@mijostyn wrote:

There is no such thing as a "lossless" digital volume control. Some units may revert to an analog volume control. But, even the best digital volume controls lose bits as the volume goes down. It is just that the really fast processors do not lose enough bits to affect sound quality. 

You're right, there isn't, but I explained what I meant by the "lossless" part in parenthesis, while forgetting the quotation marks. Whether or not the volume control of my DAC/preamp sports a 64-bit floating point (I don't know its specs in this regard, other than it's digital through and through), I can't say, but it trumps the 64-bit floating point VC of my JRiver MC31 playback software (with DAC volume at what equates to 0dB), and that's all I need to know. And bear in mind: my speaker system is ~100 to 111dB sensitive, actively configured, so oftentimes I'm using the lower range of the volume control, which only tests its resolving capabilities here.  

Down the road? I have been tuning my system one Hz at a time for 25 years. Let's say I measure my system and see a 3 dB dip in the left channel at a specific frequency say 358 Hz. I can select 358 Hz and increase it 3 dB. I can also adjust the Q of the filter matching what I see on the measurement exactly. 

That's what I'm doing already and have for a few years now, but what I've learned from measurements and the corresponding, manual frequency corrections is that a frequency peak of, say, 5dB's shouldn't be suppressed with -5dB's, but rather less. Indeed, less is more here, and it's surprising how smaller corrections can have an effect - indeed the proper effect. We measured a peak over my EV horns at just over 13kHz with the left and right horn peak measuring exactly the same down to the single Hertz, and applied a mild suppression here (i.e.: less than the peak indicated) for the best sonic outcome. Decibel increments with the Xilica DSP are adjusted at 0,25dB's, although 0,10 would've been nice. Delay in 0.010ms increments. Single Hz ditto. 

I think its not just speakers, its the amplifier and source too.  New equipment has the techology along with electronics/caps to play the new music so the synergy with the sound more fast pace imo.  Like my pair of Elacs with ribbon tweeters.  My vintage B&W803 and Silverline Sonatta II that are over 20yrs old sound fantastic.  These speakers were built for equipment during the 90s and early 2000 so I like using equipment to match with these.

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.