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

@mikelavigne ,

The Trinnov is fine for home theater. I looked carefully at the Amethyst but Its bass management is severely limited and it is not programmable at a level that is acceptable. I waited 3 years to see what DEQX was going to do making a PITA out of myself in the process as my old TacT processor was dying. It did three months ago. At any rate I will be getting one of the first units. The DEQX is far more powerful and flexible than the Trinnov. It will do everything I want and more. It is also obviously built as well or better than any other equipment on the market. The technology is so powerful now that you can make a system sound anyway you want within the limitations of your other equipment, the speaker/room being the most significant. You can not make a point source system sound like a linear array and vice versa.  

Mike, come on, every modern record and most of the rereleases you listen to are digitally modified. I just got a new pressing of Fontessa in mono (Modern Jazz Quartet) and the tape hiss is gone, disappeared. I wonder how that happened. All modern material with few exceptions are recorded digitally on a hard drive. I know that too many digital recordings are compressed into high volume pancakes. Vinyl is also to some degree to keep the volume above the noise floor. 

I just recently recorded an audiophile delite from a friends collection in 192//24 with digital RIAA correction. Nobody can reliably tell the difference between the original and the recording. It is a great way to get music that is no longer being produced. 

Speaker built in the mid to late 80s and now are modern designed speakers. We should discuss speaker built in the late 60s to the 80s.

Speakers Like: JBL, Bozak, Rectilinear, Klipsch, Macintosh. These speakers were another breed of designs. Example JBL had terrible crossover and were basically a Rheostat divider and the. One of the earliest good speakers were Duntec's.

@mikelavigne, mijostyn—

Gotta agree with mijostyn, even though I share Mike’s skepticism regarding DSP. In fact, I learned of a superlative digital (DSD SACD) "reference recording" from a post of Mike’s many months ago: Anna Netrebko’s DGG recital of opera arias called "Sempre Libera." Mike especially called attention to the glass harmonica on several tracks. (Note that this was before the recent scandal involving Ms. Netrebko’s support for Putin, and its consequences for her career.)

Turntables are beautiful technologies (or can be), and I do appreciate the nostalgic thrill of spinning LPs. But privileging vinyl for sound quality is really hard to defend rationally.

@mijostyn

we have already kicked this can around completely. nothing more to say about it. look up our last go around and read my responses.

i have 8000-9000 Lps pressed prior to the late 70’s. and a couple thousand reissues since then without a digital component. then another 2000-3000 with some sort of digital step. not going to add another conversion. plus my Wadax digital would be negatively affected by another conversion. it’s purity sets it apart. no way any conversion would be transparent.

then there is my tape, which is not going to be digitized.

not looking for any consensus.

and never said my room is perfect, it’s only epic.

I went to Lyric HiFi in White Plains, NY in 1981 to buy a pair of DCM Time Windows - the then darling of the audiophile press.  I asked to listen to them and the salesman obliged and I thought they sounded really good.  The salesman then switched to a pair of Mission 770's and I was blown away.  The boomy cabinet resonances of the DCM were gone, and the imaging was incredible, with the double bass palpably 6' behind the speaker and the rest of the musicians placed solidly within the sound field.  Switching back to the DCM, the sound stage collapsed and the muddy bass returned.  I bought the Missions on the spot and still have them today.