Why Crazy Prices paid for Pioneer 100 JBL L100 AR1 AR3 AR3A

I owned a pair of AR3's for about 5 years(years ago.....don't remember exactly but probably in the early 1970's)....sold them and bought a pair of original Quad ESL's from Jonas Miller in Los Angeles. The first piece of classical music I played was almost not recognizable....the Quads were that much better than the AR's

  Recently watched a 1965 Ford GT350R serial number 1 go for $3.5 M. I can’t afford a vintage car but I have a pristine pair of 80’s JBL 4312A’s with custom Sound Anchor stands 26” tall . And they’re in the closet because they don’t sound like I remembered from my youth . Eventually I’ll rebuild the crossovers .  But since they are a near field studio monitor used in a horizontal array , maybe they just won’t sound “GOOD”. Friends with the big 15” stuff that’s bi-amped with tubes on top and A/B or class D on the woofers and running digital correction do sound pretty good , if you like the ZZ Top live sound . I had Vintage Klipsch and Large Advent . Gave  my Klipsch Heresys and a vintage Sansui to my daughter. Gave the Klipsch KG’s and a vintage Marantz to my son . Both received Schiit DAC’s too. They’re happy , I’m happy . Running 12wpc SEP tube to Zu’s now. Growing up in Fresno I remember Quadraflex , and Sun Stereo’s DWD’s. DWD built stuff for ESS. Also  Vandersteen is made in a nearby town . Now that’s a vintage speaker worth owning ! Cheers , Mike B. 

What must be remembered is that for many of us, we first listened to music on portable or table-top AM radios, later on FM radios. Once you were able to hear music reproduced using a receiver and two speakers of whatever kind, you were hooked. I think that sound was imprinted in our brains and to a large extent accounts for much of the demand for gear from the early-to-mid 70s. I have many pieces from that era (just bought a pristine Sansui TU-517 tuner that looks brand-new and sounds great) and I use large Advents and a couple of pair of ADS speakers to bring back
that sound. With the right music, I enjoy that as much as listening to my Audio Research/Accuphase/Vandersteen system. I know I'm a dinosaur, but then they ruled the earth for millions of years, so I figure I'm in good company.

I asked where the market was of a guy who repairs and sells classic components and speakers.  His reply was that hipsters buy them because they are cool and classic. They want to impressed their hipster friends that they too can go retro. Hence the demand. Ahh, capitalism.

I have a pai of L100s that I bought in 1975 with an expensive crossover upgrade that made them sound really very good. I use them in the living room to impress my friends. :)

What does this stuff have in common with the pyramids?Its all ancient history.