vintage versus modern speakers

You have been given good, solid advice. New speakers are definitely better, dollar for dollar, than what you'll get from 30 yr. old speakers.

And your amp now dictates the appropriate speakers to look at....

-RW-

JBL L100s have a frequency curve that looks like a smile...all highs and lows. I liked them back in the day but modern stuff is often designed with a much more even (accurate) frequency response overall, and usually far less coloration.

IMHO, the 70's not so much. But, the 80's & 90's, well that's another story.

Well, here is the amp I have: SAE 2401, SOLID STATE, NELSON PASS DESIGNED. Here are the specs:
Minimum Continuous RMS Power Per Channel (both channels driven 20 - 20,000 Hz at rated Distortion):
250 watts at 8 ohms
375 watts at 4 ohms
Total harmonic Distortion (from 250 mW to full rated power/at 1 watt): less than 0,025%/0,02%
Intermodulation Distortion (from 250 mW to full rated power): less than 0,025%
Clipping head Room: 0,5 dB
Damping Factor: 60

Frequency Response:
Rated Power : 20 Hz to 20 kHz +0, -0,5 dB
1 Watt [Normal/Hi-Pass]: 2 Hz - 160 kHz / 20 Hz - 160 kHz +0,25, -3 dB
Signal-to-Noise Ratio:
Rated Power (unweighted): 110 dB
Rated Power (IHF-a): 125 dB
1 Watt (IHF-A): 100 dB
Crosstalk (100 Hz to 10 kHz): greater than 70 dB
Rated Output : 2,24

Both Wolf_garcia and Ebm nailed it in their prior posts.

"Vintage" in speakers bears no correlation to wine. In this hobby it just means "old" in the context of "outdated".

Yes, I owned the JBL L100s back in their heyday and they were fine IN THEIR ERA. BUT ....

(i) The available competitors back then were comparatively few; and

(ii) that "vintage speaker " technology by today's standards is very very outdated with a matched big erosion of performance in terms of comparative performance.

(iii) Most had a big, skewed and excessively-pronounced top and bottom end to emphasize the college crown craving for "loud" and "boomy" as part of the 60s and 70s rock music offerings. That artificial "West Coast sound" (Google it) was a new manufactured sonic signature of that era designed to appeal to the college crowd masses and boomy rock discs such as Jethro Tull, The Doors, The Doobie Brothers, The Stones et al (NOTE: mostly poorly recorded offerings by today's standards = ergo the many remasters today).

"Vintage speaker" attraction today is masked in a fleeting nostalgia wrapper, because their comparative performance against today's quality product is not even close.