Manufacturers past their heyday

"grandfather listen to old gear he had on when riding his grandma to give birth to his father while glancing at same poster."

Thanks for the imagery. "Once you see it, you can't unsee it."

JBL . Jbl is still a top notch speaker manufacturer.  Jbl is bigger overseas than here in the states on there high end level.  They set the standards and still kicking ass

CJ is here in my home town of Fairfax va and still making some remarkable produts. I have seen so many different audio companies come out in the last 30 years that still can't hold a candle to some of the original design pieces of audio equipment.  Cheaper products cheaper parts and snake oil

zavato  I have a concrete example of how something begins to lose relevance:  When the revolutionary B&W 800 was released, it was the pinnacle of speaker sound design.  Many recording studios immediately bought them, including Abbey Road and Decca.  Revierwers were awestruck. When the 801 series 2 was released, it was perceived to not be as good.  It actually was better, mainly due to its lack of speaker box resonance from its internal matrix design;  Unfortunately, it was released with the first, gigantic 800.  There had been nothing universally considered to be finer than the first 800, but the Series 2  had the 800 as its competitive ideal, as well as some competition from other speaker companies.