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

@mikelavigne ,

There is no such thing as a perfect room. There is also no such thing as a perfect loudspeaker and there is certainly no such thing as a perfect analog crossover.

Each one of your speakers has its own amplitude curve and they are not the same, even if your room is perfectly symmetrical. This leads to smearing of the image. The secret is getting the two channels within 1 dB or better from 100 Hz to 12kHz.

You can use much steeper orders without any distortion in the digital realm and you can perfectly align all the drivers in phase and time regardless of where you place them. 

In short, your speaker plus the DEQX will be way more accurate than any speaker these people can come up with. That sir is an absolute fact. I spent decades on your side of the fence. The single greatest development in HiFi since the advent of the KLH Model 3 is digital signal processing. The Pre 8 is currently the best processor available. It has a 64 bit floating point system and will stay above 192/24 regardless of anything it does. What is the difference? It is like trying to compare a good direct to disc record and a good studio record. 

But, stay on your side of the fence. Instead of knowing you have the best possible system, waste time and money searching for something better. That search will never end. That question mark will drive you crazy.

PBN Montana XPS. Mine are circa 2007.

Instead of knowing you have the best possible system, waste time and money searching for something better.

@mijostyn

Honestly, i’m not searching. My speaker builder wants me to buy the new version. Im not really doing anything to make that happen. But if it does, then ok.

https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649999847-evolution-acoustics-mm-seven-twin-tower-speakers/

the new version has enough in common with mine they should be relatively plug and play in my room.

That search will never end. That question mark will drive you crazy.

no one ever knows if something is the best possible. that is a fools errand. But i have reached my goals (back 8 years ago in 2015) as far as my reference system sound and have no interest, none at all, in digitizing my signal path to find something different. i have invested in ultimate sources with astonishing purity. why would i dumb those down with dsp?

i have a separate home theater with Trinnov 9.3.6 Dolby Atmos for my dsp itch to be scratched, it’s not going to be part of my 2 channel room. multi-channel is already mucked up with dsp to begin with so i’m fine with that.

if i ever downsize and sell my home, and get a smaller 2 channel room with acoustic issues then who knows. dsp might be one choice if i can somehow hold my nose with my analog. but not in my current room. never going to happen.

btw, you and i have already done this same dance before. why do it again?

“I'm stuck on ESLs. If you can find Acoustat 2+2s in decent shape, add subs and really big SS amps. You will have an amazing line source system. ”

No need for either, keep them away from walls and they do well.

I used to run them off a nad 208 ( 600wpc into 2ohms) but found they like my tube jolida brc1000 best. I have the rare carver loudspeaker slipped in to give a little bass boost and it has hooography circuit optimized for planars, sounds better than anything else I have heard

I've had a similar experience to the OP. I've been to 3 audio shows in the last few years and I have determined that it would take a huge amount of money to beat my current late 90's system - Thiel CS6 speakers, Krell KRC-2 and KSA 300S. These speaker are about 25 years old and when I come home and play the same tracks I heard at the show I sit there and shake my head in disbelief. Except for a very few speakers (MBL 101E Mk II or Von Schweikert Ultra 11's for example) my Thiels hold up against pretty much anything.

I have listened to rooms where the cabling and power conditioning cost more than my entire system and I wasn't impressed. BTW, I am lucky to have a large listening room but I haven't done any audiophile room treatment. I have lots of absorption and diffusion (book shelves, CD shelves, equipment racks, couch, chair, ottoman, desk, etc) and when I play a good recording the speakers absolutely disappear. I've had non-audiophile friends listen slack jawed and finally ask me, "how does it do that?"

I honestly don't think that the state of the art in playback has progressed much in the last 25 years unless you get into 6 figure components. There are a lot of wealthy people in the world who will pay big bucks for something that they can show off to their friends but an audiophile of modest means can put together a killer system for a reasonable amount of money.