The mains and surrounds in my HT system were designed and sold in 1979. The mains cost me $250 for the pair and weighed appr 140 lbs apiece from the factory, not including the box. The surrounds are slightly smaller versions and weigh just a bit less, but they set me back just a tad more i.e. $300. Both have been upgraded quite a bit by me, but the basic design is currently being emulated by many, many manufacturers today. If i had to buy these speakers today, they would probably cost somewhere around $15,000 - $20,000 for all four. These were all 100% functional when i purchased them and the surrounds even came with multiple spare drivers.
The speakers in my office system were first released in 1972. Like the others, i've performed quite a few mods to them. When they stopped production on them in 1984, they sold for $4000 a pair. I paid $200 for one set and my spare set ran $175 if i remember correctly. Both were in need of repair when i purchased them.
The speakers in my "vintage" tube based system were first released back in 1963 and are still in production today. Current value on a new pair is appr $3000. I traded $150 worth of radio communications gear to one of my customers for them. These were fully functional, but they were just too big for him to take with him when they moved. While these are not even remotely close to being production models anymore, they look very much the same with a few alterations.
In other words, yes, some older speakers are definitely worth having and tinkering with. Having said that, there have been many advances in driver technology, crossover design and the quality of passive parts used. As a general rule though, applying current levels of technology and upgrading the passive parts to current standards can produce pretty astounding results for pennies on the dollar. This is especially true if one takes the time to properly brace and damp the cabinet, etc... Sean
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PS... Many speakers are built by manufacturers / independent folks that know very little about speaker design, acoustics or electronics. This is evidenced by the poor performance that we see in current day multi-thousand dollar designs. Believe me, i've pulled apart some highly regarded, highly reviewed speakers only to laugh my ass off once i saw the insides. When one spends THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of dollars for a speaker and it can't even do 40 or 50 Hz cleanly, there isn't much of a comparison that one can make to an original 1970's "Large" Advent that you can buy for $100 - $150 a pair. Granted, the newer speaker may do some things measurably better, but you might be surprised at how close that $150 investment in some "antiques" can come, especially with another hundred or two and some elbow grease thrown in. This is not to mention what you can end up with when you're starting off with some "old boat anchors" like Quad's, Beveridge's, Plasmatronic's, etc... Most of the companies "way back when" got into speaker manufacturing because they knew what they were doing and it was a challenge to build the best that they could offer. Nowadays, anybody can shove drivers into a box and push them out the door at a high profit margin. Modern day speaker "designers" are the folks that are using computers to do all of their thinking for them. Take their computer away and they would be lost. Sure, they might be able to build something decent, but my guess is that none of you would want to own it. Yes, there are a few exceptions to this generalization, but you get the point. All the great speakers of today are based on the groundwork and models of the past.
