vintage versus modern speakers

Rockanroller, here is my feeble minded attempt to explain voltage paradigm for those that share my huge intellect.
A Voltage paradigm amplifier is one that is capable of maintaining its voltage output at any given impedance, say from 2 to 16 ohms.... If you give an 8 ohm load a consistent voltage, the amplifier will give you its capable power output, If the Voltage is maintained for 4 ohms, the power output will double, if Voltage is still maintained at 2 ohms, power will double again.
In a power Paradigm amplifier, the amplifier is designed to give you a constant power at any given impedance, typically 4 to 16 ohms.
I'm sure someone out there can straighten out any imperfections in that explanation, but it will put you in the league of a correct answer.

I'm not sure that modern drivers with their hyped exotic materials are all that much better than the old plain paper, etc. drivers that preceded them, especially when one considers their performance to cost ratios.
IMHO, many of the used late 80's through early 00's speakers from manufactures such as Dunlavy, Magnaplanar, Thiel, Vandersteen, etc., can more than hold their own against comparably priced new options.

If you like the sound of a particular speaker with a particular amp then buy it. Doesn't matter when it was made if in good condition. It doesn't matter how good or not all the rest are.

So let's see. New cars are better than the 30 yr old technology auto. Computers are much better, televisions, washing machines, power tools, battery technology, tennis rackets, jets, and on and on the list goes.

But speakers, they haven't bested those heady days in the 70's/80's/pick your decade. Excuse me for smiling up my sleeve.

It is interesting how technological advances can be more readily applied in certain areas, but, not in others. We now have, and employ, the latest tools to analyze such instruments as the violin and yet, many of the best instruments remain those made from the late 1600's to the early 1700's. There are instruments made of fancy metal alloys and carbon fiber composites, and yet, no one has been able to make consistently superior instruments using modern technology. Why? For one thing, we don't completely understand what makes for good sound reproduction and how to measure those qualities and how to then embody those qualities in the instrument. A lot of that is the "art" of making a good violin or a good speaker.

There are a lot of speaker designers who employ very high tech approaches to reducing cabinet resonance, controlling breakup modes in speaker diaphragms, reducing driver mass, etc., and yet, notwithstanding the same technological goals, the sound of their products is radically different. Clearly, there are things at play that have not been analyzed, measured and accounted for that ultimately matter.

From a perspective of my personal taste, a lot of the high tech speakers are a disappointment. I suspect that, in the pursuit of improving on certain measurable aspects of "performance" something else suffered.