What DECADE in the last 80 years had the BEST


In my opinion the TWO BEST decades for "The Best" sounding components were the 1920's and the 1970's. The 20's perfected the Direct 'eated Triodes and field coil speakers. The 70' saw the perfection of Japanese solid state audio components. Some experts consider the best equipment to have been manufactured in the '50's or '60's. If you could enter the WAVAC time traveler(pat. pend) with a dumpster sized container(and a pocket of diamonds to cash in at the pawn shop) which decade (or year) would you travel to and fill up the container then return to 2005 with your NOS?
mint604
I would also agree with the 50's & 60's but perhaps not so much for the equiptment, but the tubes that went inside of them. Western Electric 300B's Telefunken & Siemens CCA's. Oh if they only had a detatchable power cord.
The 1970s Definitely Audio Equipment started to floor our shores .Good Equipment Pioneer, Sony,Kenwood, Sansui, a few of many that sold great equipment. That you can still find working today.
Now, no contest. Nostalgia is the enemy of SOTA. It's one reason I state that the greatest impediment to advancing an audio system is the audiophile. 

Streaming audio alone, having the world literally at fingertips, makes this the greatest time for audiophiles. The quality of the average budget system is light years above other decades. Older components and speakers were horrible all in all. The most I can take listening to a vintage system is a few hours - at most. They're awful in comparison to today's quality, in every parameter of sound quality. They are poorly defined, have too much noise and excessive coloration, are often frequency limited, and often have outright high distortion. The only person to whom I would recommend vintage gear, or the associated experience, is someone who has no serious budget for audio. It's better than nothing. 

You can take all the sound of those decades and throw them into the trash bin, now that superior class D has arrived. They couldn't begin to touch this sound quality even 15-20 years ago. It would have taken a fortune to even try. 

The prevalence of the huge, hollow, boxy speaker was nearly a scourge on the population. No variety, no choice, no deviation from yuck results. Not universally, but nearly. 

Cables were complete crap. The cabling alone was disgusting, and audio systems were made fundamentally worse due to the ignorance of the talking heads who never could figure out how important they were. Then came the years of ignorance, still in effect, where mixing cables is supposed to be genius. Not! 

There were, and still are, so many system building mistakes in the community and industry, like endlessly promoting "giant killers" and components made with garbage parts, that it's a wonder we have gotten this far.  :)

Now, I'm not out to kill good feelings. But, I am all about superior sound and superior listening experiences, not only warm fuzzies.